With Major League Baseball’s All-Star break upon us, it’s a good time to take a moment to correct the pronunciation of a few ballplayers’ names. This helpful guide will assist fans and announcers alike. While these names will no doubt appear easy to pronounce, they are almost always mispronounced.

Chone Figgins
Seattle Mariners, 2B

We may have to accept that S-E-A-N is pronounced as “Shawn”, but there is no way C-H-O-N-E is anything but Ch-one.

Jhonny Peralta
Cleveland Indians, 3B

Jhonny was the victim of an unfortunate birth certificate misspelling. However, he’s chosen to stick by the new spelling, and for that he gets a new pronunciation too.

Felix Pie
Baltimore Orioles, LF

There’s no room for debate on this one – P-I-E is pronounced pie, like delicious rhubarb pie.

David DeJesus
Kansas City Royals, LF

I know it’s Spanish. I just don’t care. Spain may have won the World Cup, but here in America, your name is Duh-Jeez-Us.

J.J. Putz
Chicago White Sox, RP

Putz is Yiddish for “penis”. Unfortunate though that may be, it can’t be hidden or glossed over.

So if you’ll be attending any Major League games in the second half of the season, be sure to get these names right. And if you anticipate boredom, you may enjoy learning some Baseball Game Games as well.

---