Mets Spelling Bee

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.