Comments on: Mike Cuellar

By: Ruthven

Ruthven — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:02:37 +0000

This reminds me of watching a Yankee game in the late 80′s or early 90′s.
Aaron Sele had just broken on the scene and was impressing early, and Yankee announcer Phil Rizzuto was talking about the Yankee’s upcoming series with the Red Sox, wondering if Sele would pitch against the Yankees but Rizutto had no idea how to pronounce his name, so he says, “I hope we are going to see that…. S—-E—-L—-E kid (spelling out the letters of his name rather than pronouncing it.)

By: davidhwillis

davidhwillis — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:49:35 +0000

And rest in peace Mr. Cuellar. Your peak was just before my time, but from every indication you were a key part of the unbelievable pitching staff on a team that belongs in any discussion of the best ballclubs in baseball history.

By: Kooperman

Kooperman — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:18:19 +0000

19. I’ve garbled so many names over the years that I’m starting to suspect Harry Caray may have been my actual father. But sometimes the simple names inspire the best memories. In 1961 my friend Peter Anderson and I were in a race to get all the Topps cards from that year, a doomed goal for certain considering we were only 10 years old and had no idea there were many different series stetched out over the season. Stores just didn’t get all 7 series…by late summer their money went to football or monster or astronaut cards. Anyway, Peter and I compared notes on all the cards we had and we talked about the players. One player wore a strange-looking uniform on his card, as I recall, and we were curious about him…to the point of speculating on his life and how he ended up on a card. But Peter, in a moment of brilliance, even went poet on me and came up with something timeless and concise. It might have even explained why this player just seemed different from the others:

Frank Funk’s
fart stunk.

By: El Lay Dave

El Lay Dave — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:01:09 +0000

18. As a Los Angeles native, the Spanish language names rarely caused me difficulty, although Curt Gowdy's sometimes odd attempts on the Game of the Week were confusing to me. I can still hear him announcing "Marty MART-in-ez", for example. The one name that did elude me for a short while, which I pronounced as an English word despite the obvious cue from the first name, was José Pagan. It ain't PAY-gun baby, it's Pa-GONE.

By: GobiasIndustries

GobiasIndustries — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:22:34 +0000

17. As a kid I always had trouble with Don Aase. The Double A thing really messed with my head. I was also confused by Rusty Kuntz. I just couldn't figure out how to pronounce his name (Coontz?)and as I got older it was fairly obvious why my older brother and his friends would all laugh when I would say his name.

By: Suffering Bruin

Suffering Bruin — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:45:50 +0000

16. My son just cracked himself up by trying to pronounce Dante Bichette. I'll leave it to you to guess why--he's ten years old.

By: rangers1994

rangers1994 — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:11:33 +0000

15. As a lifelong Mets / National League fan, I wasn't up on my American League when I was a kid, except for the Orioles, because one of my school friends got me into them. I think I was actually okay with the pronunciation of Cuellar. I still haven't figured out whether it was John Lowen-steen or John Lowen-stine, though, one of my favorite players of the time. The same kid also got me into the Montreal Canadiens, so I learned my hockey pronunciation early on. My favorite mispronunciation has always been Bill Chadwick calling Mario Marois "Mario Marijuana." (Yeah, I know I've gotten off-track and that this is a baseball page.) As far as the current Mets go, Chris McKendry of SportsCenter recently pronounced Ruben as Go-tay and Go-tie during the same segment.

By: sly jones

sly jones — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:51:53 +0000

14. I could never see Jaime Cocanower's name without inserting "cocaine" into it. To this day I have no idea how it's pronounced ... I just think of him (on the rare occasions I think of him) as Jaime Cocaine.

By: ellen9

ellen9 — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:52:03 +0000

13. As a child, I read much more than I ever spoke to other people. My family, to this day, mocks me soundly by repeating my lonely, idiosyncratic first pronunciation of m-ON-ks, ALL-bany, and Ig-nah-tee-us (St. Ignatius). When I finally got a Stratomatic team of my own, in my early 20s, I pored over my cards with glee and deep trepidation. At my women's college I had had precious little chance to speak to anyone about baseball, and I had moments of paralyzing anxiety when first attempting to discuss my Stratomatic team with anyone else in the league. Alas, there was no email then, so I actually had to vocalize names such as, yes, Greg GAG-nee. Thank god for Fernando Valenzuela.

By: Peanut

Peanut — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:10:23 +0000

12. Greg Gagne was the answer to a between-innings trivia question at Dodger Stadium a couple of years ago. After they showed his name, all around me people asked "Who's Greg Gahn-yay?" I went to elementary school with a kid who's last name was Guillen. Everybody called him Gull-yen until Ozzie Guillen became famous. I don't remember him correcting anybody either way.