(Editor's Note: Philadelphia area sports writer Ben Horrow contributes weekly to Authentically Speaking.)
By Ben Horrow
On Wednesday night Twins pitcher Jeff Manship took the mound to face the division rival Kansas City Royals. He entered the game in the 6th inning replacing Twins starter Nick Blackburn. Both Twins pitchers have last names that can be split into two separate words.
Manship gives you “man” and “ship” while Blackburn becomes “black” and “burn”. When Manship took the mound, Twins announcers realized that the name sewn on the back of his Jersey was spelled incorrectly.
Instead of “Manship” the righty’s name read Mansihp. Although this is embarrassing for both Manship and the Twins equipment manager, it does not constitute the first jersey gaff and it will most certainly not be the last.
Other similar equipment issues include the 2010 San Francisco Giants who misspelled “Fransico”, “Francicso”, the 2009 Washington Nationals who went with the unconventional spelling of “Natinals” and the 2009 Colorado Rockies, who misspelled outfielder Seth Smith’s last name “Smtih” instead of the proper Smith.
Interestingly, Adam Dunn’s misspelled
2009 Natinals jersey sold for $8,000 at the Nationals annual gala
auction. An impressive sum spent on a mistake. The "Natinals" lost the game on April 19, 2009 to the (Florida) Marlins 3-2.
While Manship’s name may have been misspelled, he pitched a scoreless 6th inning for the Twins on Wednesday en rout to the Twins 4-2 win over the Royals. Hysterically, when the Twins announcers noticed the misspelling, the Kansas City batter was Johnny Giavotella whose name, the announcers joked, could be spelled incorrectly without anyone noticing.
For more instances of misspelled jerseys, Sports Illustrated has a slide show full of them.
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This traveling baseball uniform is white: As has become a custom the last three years under seven year skipper Joe Maddon,, the Tampa Bay Rays traveling party showed up at Yankee Stadium Thursday all decked out in white, as per Maddon's instructions,
The reason? Because after the 7-3 victory over the Yankees, which has the Rays tied for first with the surprising Orioles in the A.L. East, the team was on route to Miami, hence the "all-white" South Beach look, the theme for this particular leg of the trip, a weekend intrastate series with the Marlins.
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Authentic Store Buzz: We've all heard the Nike pitch as ot relates to the new 2012 on field NFL jerseys, the varying fabrics used in the design from water repellent to mesh, and they are a pretty cool jersey to see up close and personal, no doubt about that.
Many jersey and plain old sports aficionados have been doing just that this week, coming into the store to see for themselves.
The latest arrivals include the Packers Clay Matthews, Miami's Reggie Bush, and the Lions Matthew Stafford.
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