Last night my wife and I enjoyed watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals on ESPN. Thankfully it occurred on an off-night for the Mets, because, honestly, it would have been tough to decide upon which to watch (OK, not really; I’d have DVR’d the Mets game and watched it afterward).
During the Bee, my good friend and fellow Mets blogger Andrew Vazzano (of The ‘Ropolitans) came up with the brilliant idea of doing “Mets Spelling Bee” on Twitter. Genius! And fun, too!
Based on Andrew’s tweetbee (is that a word?), I was inspired to come up with a list of the most-difficult-to-spell names in Mets history. Here is what I came up with off the top of my head; some of them may seem easy to spell because you’re familiar with the player. This is a tough exercise for fervent Mets fans, but try to get away from your familiarity and think about these from the perspective of someone who has never watched a Mets game in their life (i.e., pretend you’ve never SEEN these names, only HEARD them); then perhaps you’ll understand why I chose some of the names I did.
Bobby Pfeil
Al Weis
Kirk Nieuwenhuis
Don Hahn
Aaron Heilman
Don Aase
Mike Bacsik
Benny Agbayani
Bruce Boisclair
Jerry Grote
Juan Berenguer
Bob Bailor
Bruce Berenyi
Ambiorix Burgos
Brad Emaus
Shawon Dunston
Jeff Francoeur
Charlie Hough
Bill Monbouquette
Randy Niemann
Scott Schoeneweis
John Stearns
Tsuyoshi Shinjo
Bill Spiers
Esix Snead
Josh Thole
Steve Trachsel
Tom Veryzer
Please add to this list in the comments; maybe we’ll put together enough names to pitch a Mets Spelling Bee Challenge between runners-up Stuti Mishra and Arvind Mahankali to ESPN The Ocho.
Vic Darensbourg
Joe Grzenda
Dan Schatzeder
Doug Mientkiewicz!
Todd Zeile
I forgot about Dougie! Or maybe I knew I couldn’t spell his name without looking it up …
Funny … on the one hand, I liked Mientkiewicz, but on the other hand, I was THRILLED when he left the team because I hated having to type out his name on the blog every day. With Captain Kirk there is a similar love/hate relationship …
I was surprised to not come across Mientkiewicz, myself. haha
2 other really easy ones that drive me crazy to see, as erroneously typed by certain Met fans on message boards or bloggers:
– “Tejeda” (Ruben Tejada)
– “Hariston” (Scott Hairston)
Ray Daviault
Ed Buchee
Chris Cannizzaro
Eddie Bressoud
Surprised Izzy left off namesake Jason Isringhausen.
Jason not related to this name Izzy.
did Jim Beauchamp play for the mets
jack dilauro
rod kanehl
chris cannizzaro (sp?)
hobie landrith
harry chiti
Amazing statistic of the day: Who led the NL in walks in 1962 by a wide margin, but still managed to finished 10th in OBP?? Of course it’s the NYMets!!! I didn’t think they led in hitting category.
Why are you posting at 5:14 am?
I could never spell Doug Mientkiewicz. Oh, wait…
When will chess championships (FF — see WSJ article tweeted by Kevin B. — can join) air on ESPN?
Ryota Igarashi
Jack Heidemann
Doc Medich
Lee Mazzilli
Gary Rajsich
Jose Oquendo
Bruce Berenyi
Calvin Schiraldi
Dan Schatzeder
Pete Schourek
Steve Trachsel