Though it is the longest baseball name ever, it was still sad to hear a morose Jarrod Saltalamacchia telling the media yesterday that after two years with the Red Sox not one teammate can spell his name correctly.
"It's pathetic," said the distraught catcher. "Do you know what it's like to get a Christmas card with your name mangled? I get 25 of them. And, I mean, these guys can't even come close. Most of them can't even spell Jarrod right, so how the hell are they ever going to learn Saltalamacchia? It's depressing."
While Bobby Valentine expressed some sympathy, he noted that he has no problem with the name. "I spelled it correctly the first time I wrote it," he said smugly. "But some people do have trouble with long names. That's why I had mine legally changed from Valentinenlogomancianomaville."
With his teammates standing by, Saltalamacchia held up his own hand-written laminated sign that read "Saltalamacchea". "Read it and get it right, guys," he said. "It's not that hard. If I can spell it so should you. By the time I was 15, I could spell it right 90 percent of the time."
Valentine shook his head sadly as he watched. "The good news is if Jarrod keeps hitting the way he does, he'll be fine even if no one can spell his name," the skipper said. "But if he slips back to the way he was hitting at the start of the year, the guys might start screwing up Ryan Lavarnway's Christmas cards."