SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – After racking up 19 hits in a 10-4 victory capping a season-opening sweep of the Astros, the Giants showed they do have one major weakness – spelling.Reserve utility man Eugenio Velez entered the game as a part of a double-switch in the seventh inning. His grey Giants road jersey spelled out “San Francicsco.”

This past Winter the front office was proactive in upgrading the offense, and it showed in a drubbing of the Astros as the Giants never trailed in the series. But there’s one thing that general manager Brian Sabean and his baseball operations staff was unable to prepare the team for, a fourth-grade spelling bee.

Velez, contacted by phone on the team’s bus played Koi.

“No, no, I didn’t know,” Velez said. “That’s the first I’ve heard.”

No word on how manager Bruce Bochy will handle the lapse, but scouts are suggesting extra homework and flash cards in place of PSPs, laptops, and i-pads during organized team travel.

It’s also possible that a team tudor gets hired for road trips, but currently Sabean is only kicking the tires on a few free-agent English teachers. The fiscally conservative Giants likely won’t be in the market for such talented spellers as the Yankees and Red Sox seem to attract.

This sadly isn’t a one-time issue, it’s a troubling relapse to one of the darker eras of Giants baseball.

In 2006 on Moises Alou bobblehead day, the Giants handed out thousands of misspelled figurines of the veteran outfielder. The doll was sporting a Giants home uniform with the word “GNATS” painted across the front.

As for Wednesday’s error, authorities haven’t ruled out the misspelling being the work of professionals (see below).

This isn’t a new issue to baseball, just last season the Washington Nationals featured error-filled home jerseys that would have had early ’90s card collectors buying wax-packs by the truck load. Ryan Zimmerman and his mates took the field with the word “Natinals” emblazoned on their chests.

In that scenario the jersey manufacturer apologized for the error, and the Nat’s corrected the mistake by the third inning.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has come under fire for turning a blind eye to the performance enhancing drug era. Now Selig is sure to face more questions as people worry about the ramifications this new affliction might have on society. When asked, one former president made it known that he was worried about the kids.

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Theo is a staff reporter and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal where he covers local prep and college sports. As an Associate Production Manager for ESPN, he helped produce Sunday Night Baseball among other national ESPN and ABC Sports telecasts. Besides his contributions to Examiner.com, the I.J. and Sports Climax, Theo is the play-by-play voice for Sonoma State University baseball and softball.

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