How to pronounce ‘Duensing’ and other Cubs names

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — When the Cubs played the White Sox Friday, substitute Sox broadcaster Russ Langer mispronounced Brian Duensing’s name as “DEN-sing.” He did this several times despite hearing Steve Stone say it correctly during the inning Duensing threw in that game.

I’ve noted this on a couple of occasions this spring. Frankly, if a major league broadcaster (or P.A. announcer) mispronounces a name, that reflects a lack of homework on the part of that individual.

That’s especially true now, because last Friday MLB sent out a press release with pronunciations of players and coaches from all 30 teams. The release also contains “name presentation preferences.”

Here’s the list for the Cubs:

Most of you know all those pronunciations and now all broadcasters and P.A. announcers will know that Duensing’s last name is pronounced as shown above: “DONE-sing.” Also, as noted above, David Bote is “BOW-dee,” not “Boaty.” And now you know exactly how to pronounce Rob Zastryzny’s name.

This is something new from MLB; I’ve been on their press release list for some time and I don’t recall them sending out something like this previously. It’s a good idea. The Cubs’ list, in fact, is one of the shorter ones. The Phillies’ list, for example, has more than 70 names on it (this was obviously produced before Jake Arrieta signed there)

Some of those are pretty obvious, but I guess the Phillies didn’t want to take any chances with any of their players.

Doing this is a good idea, especially with the large number of MLB players from countries other than the USA. Kudos to MLB for this helpful guide.