The Word Series

A friend pointed out that I misspelled Saltalamacchia in a previous post.

I figure I deserve to be punished. And so why shouldn’t I make the punishment fun?

If you haven’t wasted at least a few hours doing pointless baseball (and non-baseball) quizzes over at Sporcle… well, I’m about to ruin your productivity forever. Because even if you don’t like the quiz I’m about to link you to, I’m pretty sure something over there is going to suck you in (or you are far more immune to the distractions of the Internet than I am… though, really, if you were, would you be reading NotGraphs?).

My self-inflicted punishment for misspelling Salty’s name is that I’ve created a quiz to test how well you can spell the hardest names in baseball (current players only). Yeah, that Marc guy is one of ’em.

Good luck.

[First one with a perfect score wins… about $40,000 less than the winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. My last spelling bee was in 4th grade, when I was eliminated from my district’s competition by misspelling halibut. For more than twenty years, I didn’t eat halibut, in silent protest. That streak was broken due to an unfortunate choice of entrees at a wedding a few years ago. I think it must have been something like “halibut or garbage?” because I honestly don’t remember what would have possibly made me choose the halibut and end my lifelong strike. I have not eaten it again since. For those who haven’t already clicked over to the quiz– or a different post!– by now, I spelled it “h-a-l-i-b-i-t.” How many fourth graders frequent the local fishmonger and study the price list??? I’m still convinced it was the pronouncer’s fault. The winning word was refrigerator! Refrigerator!! But I’m over it. Really, I am.]