04/26/24
August 02, 2010
Ozzie Guillen sounds off on baseball's treatment of players: Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen spoke his mind again Sunday...and this time he wasn't haranguing his players or umpires or any of the usual suspects.
He spoke about what he perceives to be a disadvantage for Spanish-speaking players in the Major League Baseball. Specifically, he cited the availability of translators for Japanese players
Hmmm, when I heard his comments on ESPN they came across as racist. How many Japanese players are there in MLB? How many Latinos? How many players are bilingual (regardless of nation of origin) in Spanish? How many players speak Japanese? What about the coaching staffs? How many development camps are in Latin countries? How many are in Japan?
I think Guillen is a complete tool so I am sincerely interested in whether this is a real issue or Ozzie speaking his ignorance (again).
posted by scully at 10:38 AM on August 02, 2010
I think Guillen is a complete tool so I am sincerely interested in whether this is a real issue or Ozzie speaking his ignorance (again).
Yeah, I'm all ears, but I'm not going to take Ozzie's word on this. I tended to believe Latin players were more often bilingual. Or do they put more effort into learning english? Or does the lack of translators force them to learn english? Do Latino players come from a more americanized background than Asian players?
Here's an article on Hideki Okajima still having trouble adjusting 4 years into his career with the Red Sox:
"Especially in the bullpen," he said, "I'm kind of alone in there. There's time to think too much, especially inside the bullpen. It's hard to maintain a strong mentality, especially when you've been hit hard the previous day. There's too much time to think in the bullpen. It would be easier to maintain if there was someone who spoke the same language and you could talk to, but that's not the reality right now."
posted by justgary at 11:10 AM on August 02, 2010
I would think the Asian ball players are at more of a disadvatnage from not having the same kind of comraderie as some of the Latino players may (or may not) enjoy. Most teams probably have a couple Spanish "translators" already on the roster which isn't the case for most players coming in from any Asian country. I'm not sure if MLB should require that translator be a seperate job. Maybe that would be the correct thing to do, maybe not. But it certainly wouldn't be a necessity like it is with players from Asia.
posted by Ricardo at 12:06 PM on August 02, 2010
I read the linked "article" and found it to be too lean. There is only a small bit of the interview with Guillen and not a single quote in opposition. It reads like a collection of "tweets." ESPN has MANY more quotes from Guillen in its article and includes a rebuttal from MLB.
The reason this sounds more and more like a racist rant from Guillen to me is that he can't seem to stay focused. Is this about PEDs? Is it about Ozzie not getting "credit" for educating (only?) Latinos on the dangers of PEDs? Is this about perceived salary differences between Latinos v Asians? Is this about his son in the minor leagues? It seems less about translators than one is led to believe from the sound bytes in the linked article.
It seems that it is mostly about Ozzie wanting attention for Ozzie and expressing his bigotry. The translator angle is a strawman. He admits himself that they have Latino coaches who can speak English and Spanish, but that a hitting coach can't speak to a pitcher? Don't understand that. He also says it is America and people should learn to speak the language, but he still thinks that Latinos don't get the same number of translators and that the Latinos are paid less than Asians.
This raised my eyebrows most: "We have a pitching coach that is Latino, but the pitching coach can't talk about hitting with a Latino guy and that's the way it is and we have to overcome all those [obstacles]. You know why? Because we're hungry, we grow up the right way, we come here to compete." (emphasis mine)
So the Asian players aren't brought up "the right way" and don't want to compete? Wow. As I said before, he's a tool.
posted by scully at 12:14 PM on August 02, 2010
It's just Ozzie being Ozzie.
posted by grum@work at 12:39 PM on August 02, 2010
Agreed, grum@work, but haven't team owners been banned from the game for saying similar things?
posted by scully at 12:54 PM on August 02, 2010
Personally, I really tire from how every comment that deals with anything race related becomes racist. That being said, Ozzie is one of those guys that always seems to be able to insert his foot into his mouth faster than one would think possible.
posted by dviking at 02:18 PM on August 02, 2010
I can say that it does vary by organization. I worked in the club house for the Mets single A team in the New York Penn League in 1992 and that year we had several Spanish speaking players, including one who was 17, all of them spoke broken English to a certain degree. I actually learned more Spanish in a summer with these guys than I did in 3 years of taking it in school. For the most part the players chose to plead ignorant when it came to having extended conversations in English if they didn't know you, but for a conversation with the local newspaper reporter we had one player who would translate for the other guys. The Mets didn't offer any real assistance to the players to get acclimated.
On the other hand I interned with the Red Sox affiliate in the same league in 2004 and I did see some of the players getting English lessons from a teacher provided by the Red Sox at the start of the season. It probably helped the players a little bit that season as well that Luis Alicea was the manager, and when it came time they had him to talk to as well.
It is possible that the 12 year difference between my experiences plays a part in this, but I am willing to guess that the different organizations approach it differently if Guillen is saying that his own organization wasn't offering this service to its minor league players. The presence of these translators is also something that is provided to the Japanese players as part of their contract negotiations, since a large number of the Japanese players with (Ichiro, Dice-K, Nomo) were all stars when they came over. As Justgary's article points out, Okajima doesn't have a translator (although I am sure Dice-K's steps in as needed) and I don't recall hearing that Tsuyoshi Shinjo or Tomo Ohka ever had one.
Another example, for a class I took while at UMass, one of our PHD students was also a correspondent for a Korean TV station so when Dae-Sung Koo was making his home debut with the Mets, he brought me and another student down to Shea to interview him. Koo didn't speak a word of English and to the best of my knowledge hadn't made a Korean translator available to him.
posted by Demophon at 02:50 PM on August 02, 2010
One of my favorite sports quotes was provided by a translator. Once fans had begun to make a habit of hollering "Fuk-u-do-me" chants during Cubs games, a reporter asked Fukudome himself what he thought about it.
His answer, provided in English by the translator was:
"I have heard the chanting. They might be releasing tension."
posted by beaverboard at 03:53 PM on August 02, 2010
Huh. I always assumed that the resources were in place for the Latino ball players, but I guess not. Good on Ozzie to point this out.