Locally Sourced

Baseball will go to the far ends of the earth in search of talent, and language is no barrier.  In fact, it is, however much teams want to pretend otherwise.

As far as I know, there has yet to be any kind of analysis measuring the baseball knowledge of Japanese and Korean interpreters.  How do you translate nuance in word and gesture?  If I were laying out big bucks for anyone from across the Pacific, first I’d make sure the player came with an interpreter who could hold up his end of the conversation in Brooklyn, Jersey, Yazoo City or the North Shore and was a former ballplayer.  Anything less and you risk having a player stuck in a language bubble.  Just because he nods doesn’t mean he understands.

I also think teams shortchange themselves and their Latin players by not paying more attention to matters of language.  Most if not all teams make do with (kind of) bilingual players; nuance may or may not get communicated.  Consider an idea or directive as it moves from coach to player and back again, a round trip between California, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.  The first time I was in Boston, I honestly had no idea what people were saying and they, me; we were all in Babel by the Back Bay.  By the same token, just because someone speaks “Spanish” doesn’t mean someone from another Spanish-speaking country will easily understand.

Neither Chicago team has done anything to stand out in dealing with this.  They basically sign the player and hope for the best.  As to signing someone a little closer to home, like Jim Thome or Kirby Puckett, that has never been much of a priority, either; native sons on either the North or South sides have been few and far between.  So, imagine my surprise when the White Sox drafted two area pitchers in the seventh and ninth rounds.  Blake Hickman played at Simeon High School and Iowa while Ryan Hinchley is from York H.S. in Elmhurst and the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

Hickman is particularly interesting as a lifelong Sox fan and a product of the team’s efforts to bring baseball to the inner city.  If he makes it, that could give black kids pause as they consider what sport to pick up: Hey, didn’t that Hickman guy grow up down the street?  Hope springs eternal at the start of spring training and the end of each year’s draft.

Just for Clare, the Sox even drafted a pitcher from Valpo.  They also drafted the owner’s grandson.  That must mean he doesn’t have any granddaughters, right?