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| Doug Mientkiewicz, down for a spell. |
On behalf of the Yankee blogiverse, I humbly say this:
Please, dear God, no! NO! Our vision is fine! WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER STINKING EYE CHART!
If you look at history, Mr. Mxyzptlk, you'll see that the Yankees have found little success from players who are identified by piles of random consonants. Why would Jeff Samardzija - or whatever his name is - be different? He'll just clog our auto-spell systems.
OK, if we could unload two Mike Jerzembecks and a Travis Ishikawa on Theo Epstein's ever-suffering Cubbies, that would work. But just wait: We'll trade a Murphy, a Sanchez and a couple Warrens - names that couldn't grace a spelling bee. And we'll get a guy who has Suzyn Waldman speaking in tongues.
For every Mark Teixeira, who has helped the Yankees, the team has suffered three Ron Klimkowskis and a Dave Wehrmeister.
Check the Top 10 Hardest To Spell Yankees, and - thankfully - none of these names need to be etched into center field plaque. Because they'd only be misspelled.
The Top Ten Hardest to Spell Yankees.
1. Doug Mientkiewicz (2007). Great fielding firstbaseman, couldn't hit. Playing for Boston, he caught the ball that officially ended the Curse of the Bambino. Then Boston ditched him, rather than try and spell his name for another season. As a Yankee, he once got hurt against the Redsocks, and I was actually thankful, knowing I wouldn't have to write his name any more.
2. Jonathan Albaladejo. (2008). Relief pitcher. What was Cashman thinking? He traded future all-star reliever Tyler "The Yankee" Clippard for this guy, whose most memorable Yankee moment was getting hit by a foul ball, getting both eyes blackened, and being nicknamed "Raccoon." I think Cashman thought he was dealing for Jessica Alba.
3. Scott Kamieniecki. (1991-96). Starter, was 36-39 with Yankees. How many vowels does a guy need to be mediocre? Against the Seattle Mariners one night, I swear you could see this guy literally shaking on the mound. At home, whenever he pitched, I was shaking.
4. Dale Mohorcic. (1988). Relief pitcher. I dreaded this guy entering a game. No matter how you spelled it, the name always looked wrong.
5. Ryota Igarashi. (2012) A pitcher. I think he threw a couple innings for us. I'm sure Girardi dropped him because he couldn't get the name right.
6. Travis Ishakawa, (2013) Firstbaseman. Cashman plucked him off the scrap heap. He played a game or two, and that was that.
7. Fred Jackiltsch. (1905) A catcher. From that famous 1905 team. Your guess is as good as mine.
8. Jay Witasick. (2001) A mid-season reliever acquisition, who collapsed - like the entire Yankee bullpen - in the playoffs. He was one of those guys who was lights-out for the previous team, and whose time with the Yankees was basically a correction.
9. Bobby Teifenauer (1965). Knuckleballer. The Yankees got him, thinking he would be their Hoyt Wilhelm and Barney Schultz. Nobody could catch him. Runners circled the bases. This was the beginning of a dark period in Yankee lore.
10. Bill Monbouquette. (1967) Stud in Boston, came too late to NYC. They just called him Monbo and let it ride. In the box scores, you'd see M'nb'q'tte.
Listen: You can add your Andy Stankiewiczes, your Tanyon Sturtzes, toss in a Jim Deshaises and Brian Boehringer - even Yangervis Solarte. It doesn't matter. We will not spell them correctly.
The Redsocks can win with Saltaknacchias, Bogaerteses, Tazawans, Ueharas, Larnaways and maybe even a Pierzynski. Not the Yankees. We need Ruths, Mantles and Munsons. No trades for gobbledigookers, Cashman. We don't need no stinkin' silent q's.
This explains the trade of reliever Danny Farquhar to the Mariners in the Ichiro deal.
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