Last year, Edwin Encarnacion was with the Jays and my husband and I noticed how much Gary Thorne, the play-by-play TV guy for the Orioles, butchered his name. Now Edwin is with the Indians, so we get to hear it even more often. Joy!
Why do people seem to struggle with that name and what other names appear to make people’s brains explode?
I just ran across this quote from a comment section on an article about Gary Thorne: “Hearing him try ‘Encarnacion’ is like watching a flightless bird get a running start and shoot right off a cliff. So majestic.”
Lou Boudreau, who did the color commentary for the Cubs on the radio back in the day, had trouble with a lot of names. I remember in particular “Mike Jorgensen,” which always came out “Jorgesen.” (There was an earlier, before-my-time player named Earl Torgeson, and I figured that was the connection.)
Phil Rizzuto, Yankees “color commentator,” couldn’t pronounce most players’ names correctly. (It’s possible I’m exaggerating.)
Hmmm…Gary Thorne wasn’t a Hall of Fame shortstop by any chance? 
I remember reading an article about John Facenda, the Philadelphia sportscaster who was the “Voice of God” on NFL Films for decades (and whose voice Chris Berman is mimicking when he intones, “the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field”). Apparently, Facenda was incapable of pronouncing former NFL coach Hank Stram’s name; he’d consistently pronounce it “Schram.”
It’s not sports, but we have a supplier named “Robertson”. About 2/3 of the people here pronounce it right, the rest say “Robinson”, except for one guy, who calls them “Robeson”. Considering it’s spelled out on all the paperwork, I can’t figure out how so many can get it wrong.*
*says the guy who thinks epitome is pronounced “eppy tome”, and cracked up the techs during his “co LIN o scoppy”.
I’ve never heard of this guy. But I would assume en-car-nah-see-ON (With the ee really short, almost like a y)? I assume it’s a Spanish pronunciation, though I always default to romance-language phonetics when encountering words like this.
I generally don’t get anyone having trouble with pronouncing words if they’ve had any time to prepare. I would expect a sports announcer or something to look through a list of players and check their pronunciations. (Hell, I’d expect them to have a handy pronunciation guide for them.) But I could see them not being that organized
What bugs me a lot more are people who do videos online about someone and only have to look up a handful of names. They have time to check it out. But many use a disclaimer to avoid having to do that work.
Don’t get me wrong, I get throwing in the disclaimer about mangling pronunciations while still doing your best. That makes sense. But it’s not a substitute for trying. And, with the Internet at your disposal, it’s not hard at all to get at least as close as a typical English speaker.
His nickname is “The Instant Breakfast.”
English speakers consistently mispronounce Pérez. (See the accent? Emphasis on the FIRST syllable.) So I really don’t expect them to know how to pronounce Encarnación.
en-car-nah-SEEON. The last syllable is a dipthong.
Maybe it’s because he’s drunk? *
*Parody account. Not the real Gary Thorne.
Jim Palmer last night turned it into something akin to a song. In the middle of the game, it took him about four tries to get out all of the syllables.
I will grant that “Encarnacion” is, to an English speaking person, not maybe the easiest thing in the world to pronounce. But
It’s not hard once you’ve learned it, and while English speaking people might not exactly nail the true Spanish essence of it you can get pretty close,
You would think a professional baseball announcer could make an effort to know how to pronounce the name of a player of considerable recent fame and accomplishment, and
Edwin isn’t the first Encarnacion in MLB history - he’s the fifth, and one of the other ones, Juan, was a regular player on two World Series champions - and, given that Latin America still pumps out top notch ballplayers, he won’t be the last, so you might as well learn it if you want to announce for a living.
Maybe, but it has to be easier than Szczur. What the hell is that?? What about Rzepczynski? And Luebke should be two syllables, not three.
Spanish names follow predictable rules, unlike those Polish abominations. 
An announcer honestly trying to wrap his tongue around a name and failing is excusable, even if it’s his job to get it right. I can’t performa Spanish double-r trill myself, despite much effort.
I have much more trouble with the guys who don’t even try, like pronouncing Quintana as kwin-TAN-nuh.
These are legitimate issues for the first time (maybe even the first five times) that an announcer encounters those names. But even I know how to pronounce “Szczur” despite the fact he’s spent most of his career playing in a division I don’t follow. Meanwhile, Gary Thorne saw Encarnacion play several times a season for quite a few years and never seemed to get it cleanly.
It’s one thing to flat out say it wrong. It’s another thing to stumble over it EVERY SINGLE TIME you run across it.
Assuming Thorne does every Orioles game, he saw Encarnacion up to 18 times a year. He’s probably watched the guy play a hundred games.
Or Les Nessman saying, “Chy Chy Rodrigweez.” 
“Les, what do you call those little Mexican dogs?”
“Che hoowa hoowas?”
One wonders if there are any chee-hoowa-hoowas in Appa-la-CHEE-ah. 
How exactly is Gary Thorne saying “Encarnacion?” I haven’t been able to dig up any audio.