Monday, June 16, 2008

Did you know?

Did you know that when you look up a Major League Baseball ™ player on ESPN.com, there's a phonetic pronunciation for that player's name toward the top of the page? Except in the cases of players like Milton Bradley (yes, there really is a baseball player named Milton Bradley, and obviously his parents knew about the game manufacturer), when ESPN assumes you know that it's pronounced "BRAD-lee," so they don't bother telling you.

I, on the other hand, assume nothing. For when you assume, you make an ass out of "um" and "e," and that is an insult that I cannot forgive.

I say, the fact that you found this website might at all might mean that you are an extremely lonely 13-year-old sitting in a basement somewhere, pouring over the depths of the internet in search of something funny, and that you might also have very poor reading skills. Notice that I don't assume that, but I have to allow for the possibility.

ESPN, however, assumes you know "BRAD-lee," is prounounced "Bradley." That's a pretty gutsy call, if you ask me.

They are just as incautious about Grady Sizemore (SIGHS-s'more), Joe Mauer (MAH-whirr), and Chipper Jones (FLOW-rinse HEN-dur-sin), which makes you wonder why they offer such a half-assed, half-implemented pronunciation guide system in the first place.

I have figured out the answer, though. It's the setup to a joke. And I bet Manny Ramirez (Ruh-MEER-ez) and Carlos Guillen (GEY-un) can tell you the punchline to the joke. So can Alex Rodriguez (Rod-RI-guez) whose pronunciation guide isn't even written phonetically, it's just the syllables of his name broken up and the middle one put in capital letters.

What's the punchline, you ask? Three words: Albert Pujols.

(Oddly enough, a search on the ESPN.com website for "poo-holes" yields no results.)

No comments: