Commentary
Baseball taxes communication skills even more PITTSBURGH – Se habla espanol.
Translation: Spanish spoken here. (Maybe).
That motto isn’t common in baseball and some people are upset about it. ESPN did an “Outside The Lines” report last week asking whether Spanish-speaking players are shortchanged by media members ill-equipped to communicate with them.
Some players who come here from Latin America countries aren’t comfortable enough with their English to use it in interviews. Most media people don’t speak Spanish.
Thus, there’s a communications gap and no easy way to bridge it. This has certainly been true on the Pittsburgh Pirates beat.
Pitcher Francisco Cordova was rarely interviewed in his years here and never without a translator.
Cordova was genuinely lost when he first came to Pittsburgh. He didn’t know enough English to pass the test for a drivers license so he lived at nearby Allegheny Center and walked to work.
In later years, though, there was evidence that “no hablo ingles” may have been a handy excuse.
Cordova liked to browse the newspaper and he often conversed with teammate Jason Schmidt, whose Spanish fluency didn’t get beyond the menu at Taco Bell.
You can logically argue the obligation falls on the outsider to learn the language that’s prevalent in the country where he makes his living. Certainly teams could support players better.
Beyond the media issue, a player would be more comfortable if he knew he could handle such basic tasks as ordering dinner or making an emergency call for his injured child.
A bilingual writer from Houston appeared on the ESPN show, maintaining that journalists covering baseball had an obligation to learn Spanish. Presumably, our self-righteous amigo will master Japanese the minute Ichiro Suzuki is traded to the Astros.
If players aren’t comfortable enough with their English to trust it in an interview setting, why should journalists armed with high school Spanish and perhaps a brush-up course bank on their foreign language skills?
A word here or there can mean a lot. During the war in Iraq, American forces dropped leaflets on citizens that contained a small but telling error.
A message that was supposed to say, “Stay in your homes or we will kill you” actually said, “Stay in your homes and we will kill you.” Imagine the confusion.
Of course, baseball isn’t a matter of life and death and talking about it shouldn’t be a huge problem.
And there’s always the option to say nothing. Steve Carlton did pretty well with that.
Freedom of the press is one of our most cherished liberties. Freedom from the press runs a close second.
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This was Pirates Manager Lloyd McClendon’s assessment of starter Kris Benson after a loss on May 15:
“He needs to go out and start being consistent. If you want to be a No. 1 starter, they give out that label on results, not potential. You have to go out and get it done.”
This was McClendon on Benson this past week:
“Let him grow. He’s making progress. Everybody wants it right now but it takes time for all guys to eventually develop into No. 1’s.”
Why the change?
Maybe it’s because the Pirates are prepared to entertain trade offers for Benson. Never denigrate a product you’re trying to sell.
It’s the same logic that makes your claustrophobic house “cozy” when it’s time to write the ad.
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They checked 77 of Sammy Sosa’s bats and didn’t find cork in any of them.
That means Sosa had 78 bats at Wrigley Field and just happened to grab the one that had cork in it. He got caught and was suspended.
If you’re beating odds like that, you should go and buy some Powerball tickets.
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Tom Barrasso retired as a Pittsburgh Penguin last week.
Although he’s not going to play any more, he will be on call to berate younger players.
Sports correspondent John Mehno can be reached online at: johnmehno@lycos..com.