Insulting

 

Three years ago, Topps put a card of Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski in its 2022 flagship set and spelled his name wrong.

 

"Yastrzemksi"

 

It was amusing and annoying -- I mean, how -- how could Topps misspell a name linked in baseball lore, a Hall of Fame name? Sure Mike Yastrzemski was just a kid, but his grandfather was an MVP and won the Triple Crown! He is legend among generations of Red Sox fans. What the hell? 

I have a specific perspective when it comes to spelling names. My job is to publish the names of local athletes almost every day and to edit all sports names before they appear in the next day's newspaper. I have done this for decades and I have watched as players' names have grown more bizarre and more difficult to spell. Yet, every day, we try to get them right.

 

Sometimes they are wrong -- often this is because the coach doesn't care enough to spell it right on the roster. Sometimes, it's us, we confuse a player with his older graduated brother. We issue a correction. We're a little mortified. Sometimes parents complain. A few have been really angry, though that was mostly a long time ago. 

 

So, when I see a name spelled wrong on the front of a baseball card, I really feel it. Oof.

 

Topps didn't correct the spelling on that 2022 card, but it did fix the name on Mike Yastrzemski's Opening Day card that year. So, they knew. They made a mistake. It isn't the first time. I was collecting cards in 1975 and pulled a card of a well-known Orioles pitcher but his name was spelled "Cueller". It happens.

 

All right, let's move forward three years. It's yesterday. I'm in Target doing that Valentine thing. I walk way back to the card aisle and there are five blasters of 2024 Archives, it's all the baseball there is on the shelves. I decide to grab one to lighten the mid-week blahs.

 

Second pack in:

 

"Yastzresmki"

 

What in the F. That's even worse than the first time!!

 

I was kind of stunned. A well-known Hall of Famer, and the name has been butchered twice in three years. Not once during those years that I collected cards between 1975-1984 did Yastrzemski's name appear any other way than "Yastrzemski".

 

His name was so common to fans and collectors that we could write it as if it was "Smith". It was so natural. I've known how to spell it since I was 10 years old. A couple of weeks ago, a well-known online baseball writer wrote the following on social media:

 

 

Yeah, you and a whole bunch of us who grew up in the '60s and '70s. But little did we know that at the same time there was a card floating out there just slaughtering the name. Not everybody knows how.

 

It's shameful really. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. Yeah, Topps makes mistakes -- "Thanks, Topps" and all that -- and yeah, it's a hoot sometimes, and, yeah, they probably don't have the editors that they once did, which is a problem for everyone in the world that publishes now, and yeah, they likely issue too many products at practically the same time for the size of the staff they carry.

 

There's a tendency to shrug your shoulders and, say, "Oops, guess they goofed."

 

But actually, it's insulting. Topps is supposedly honoring the legends they put in products now, honoring their legacy and what they meant to the team and their fans. They could at least get the name right. I understand that Yaz played a long time ago and people who are in their 40s don't remember his career, but there's almost nothing more annoying to me than when I see younger people dismiss old players or bands or moments as being irrelevant and that they don't matter. So irrelevant, apparently, that nobody could be bothered to look it up and so now a card is mass-produced with the name of a legend spelled wrong. Again.

 

So, anyway, aside from that, the box was a success.

 

 

I needed three Dodgers for the base set and I pulled two of them (only Ohtani left, surprise). And I didn't pull any Dodger dupes. In fact the entire box was new cards for me, after opening three hanger packs earlier.

 

 

Also there are four black borders in the blasters. This was by far the best one.

 

Oh, and I pulled a card of another Hall of Famer with a Polish last name:

 

 

They got this one right.

 

I don't cover many games in my job anymore but once, maybe a couple of decades ago, I interviewed a high school kid and double-checked with him on how to spell his name. The response I got surprised me. "It doesn't matter," he said. WHAT? How is that possible? It's your NAME!

 

Maybe that kid works at Topps now.