Artem Chtcherbakov.

Kulea Bondallian.

Arielito Dos Passos.

Try saying those names with just a little of bit advance notice and practice.

Now try saying those names in front of hundreds of spectators, during a world championship tournament – you’ll know what Bob Beatham has gone through the past two years as the official announcer of the Senior League World Series.

Beatham will be at it again starting Sunday as Bangor hosts the tournament for the third year in a row.

He’ll announce all 23 games next week during the tournament for ages 15-16. The opening ceremony is Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and the championship game is Saturday, Aug. 21 at 1 p.m.

“I think it’s a lot bigger than the baseball itself,” Beatham said. “You get to meet people from all over the world. Those are the things you remember. There really haven’t been many games that stick out, but it’s the friends you make, the players, the coaches, that kind of makes it special.”

Beatham, a 32-year-old Bangor resident, has done 105 baseball games at Mansfield this year and is in his 10th year announcing at the stadium.

But the Senior League World Series provides a different kind of challenge: instead of having to pronounce the occasional “Urquhart” or worry about whether the second G in “Gagnon” is silent, Beatham is faced with dozens of names of players and coaches that come from a wide variety of countries.

In the past two years those nations have included Russia, Curacao and the Philippines. Even the names of participants from U.S. states like Hawaii and U.S. territory Guam take Beatham extra practice.

This year teams from the Netherlands, Venezuela, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an island chain in the north Pacific, could give Beatham pause.

“You get a lot of interesting names during the week,” he said.

That just means Beatham has to do some extra preparation. About 11/2 hours before the games, he heads down to the Mansfield Stadium dugouts to fetch a lineup. He goes over the names with a coach, making sure his pronunciation is correct. Sometimes Beatham will go to the player directly and ask how he should announce the name.

He also writes out each name phonetically.

Beatham has had some favorite names in the last two years. He got a kick out of Colton Toy, a center fielder for the Calgary, Alberta, team that represented Canada last summer. Second baseman Chris Heffelfinger of U.S. Central representative Urbana, Iowa, was another of Beatham’s favorites.

He recalled taking some time to learn Russian names like Chtcherbakov, who was a first baseman for the Europe entry. Bondallian was a first baseman-pitcher for Hilo, Hawaii, the eventual 2003 champions. Dos Passos, a Curacao right fielder, was another of Beatham’s favorites.

It takes Beatham a few times of announcing one team to get the names down. And, he admits, he makes his share of mistakes before he’s got all the names correct.

“You do enough games, obviously you’re going to mess up once or twice,” he said.

Beatham has another big responsibility during the tournament: he plays each team’s national anthem.

Beatham, who is a customer service representative for Microdyne Outsourcing Inc. in Orono, also announces Brewer and John Bapst football games during the fall high school season. The Bangor High graduate helps with the occasional high school basketball tournament game on the radio and serves as the John Bapst freshman boys basketball coach.

This year Beatham started announcing high school baseball games in April, continuing with the high school playoffs and championships, then American Legion regular-season and tournament play, followed by Junior and Senior League District and state tourneys.

“It was a natural fit,” he said of his work in the World Series. “I do all the other games anyway.”