Spellcheck needed for Opening Day rosters

For as long as Latinos have played in the majors, media, fans and teammates have tried to anglicize their names. Even the patron saint of Latino ballplayers, the proud “Great One” Roberto Clemente, couldn’t completely avoid the practice.

Clemente bristled throughout his legendary career when he was referred to as Robert, Bob or Bobby by Pittsburgh beat writers and even on his TOPPS card. That practice hasn’t completely ended, unfortunately, but Major League Baseball is clearly providing assistance for media.

Although nearly a third of the players in MLB are from Latin America, there are still newspapers in America that knowingly choose to spell players’ names incorrectly.

Forty-six years after Clemente died, reigning National League Rookie of the Year Ronaldo Acuña, Jr. is a prime example of a star baseball player whose name is spelled incorrectly in many American newspapers.

Sadly, even the Braves’ hometown Atlanta Journal-Constitution misspelled Acuña each time they wrote about the young Venezuelan even though he was considered baseball’s top prospect before landing in Atlanta.

The AJC is hardly the only outlet that doesn’t use the ñ. Yairo Muñoz and Francisco Peña of the Cardinals also suffer the same fate. In Peña’s case the misspelling completely changes the meaning of the name because Pena in Spanish means pain.

Quite simply for some newspapers it’s too much of a pain to spell some Latino names correctly. Especially at a time when staffs are shrinking, some newspapers have completely given up and farmed out their copy editing duties to remote design centers far away from the actual newspapers’ hometowns.

Coding is another major problem because some outlets don’t have the time or capability to add the tilde atop the n to make an ñ. Even MLB.com, which arguably does the best and most thorough job on Latino prospects as they matriculate from Latin America through the farm system, doesn’t use the ñ.

The Athletic, however, spells Peña, Acuña, Muñoz and every other name with an ñ correctly on its site.

Whatever the case, MLB at least provides guidance to media outlets annually with a thorough press release that outlines the name presentation preference and pronunciation for each player, manager and coach.

In most cases, these players are accessible to local media and fans. The least we can do is spell their names correctly. We owe it to them and our readers.

Featured Image: Rob Tringali / Major League Baseball