Jose Altuve/ Why it is good to learn English

Story from Lexington herald Leader

Sunday, May. 23, 2010
America's game — in Spanish and English for the Legends
English lessons provide advantage on field, off

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears - vhoneycutt@herald-leader.com

In a boardroom overlooking the Lexington Legends ball field at Applebee's Park, class is in session. Eight Spanish-speaking baseball players on Lexington's minor-league team are learning how to give media interviews, talk with fans and understand coaching instructions in English.
"I want to go to the show," said the most advanced student in the class, second-baseman Jose Altuve, a 20-year-old Venezuelan. In baseball, "the show" is slang for the major leagues. "If you know English, you are going to know exactly what to do" when the coach gives direction, Altuve said.
The Houston Astros, the Legends' parent team, provide English-as-a-second-language classes to dozens of players on affiliate teams such as the Legends, according to Allen Rowin, the coordinator for player development for the Astros.
Players who are foreign citizens obtain work visas that allow them to live in the United States for the length of their contract with the Astros, Rowin said.
Because nearly a third of their players are from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, the Legends are part of a trend in baseball. The number of Latino players and coaches has grown markedly in the past 10 years.
According to the 2010 Racial and Gender Report Card released by the University of Central Florida, 28.3 percent of players in Major League Baseball are Latino, up from 27 percent in 2009. Seventeen percent of the coaches in the league are Latino.
At the 20 classes that the Legends will offer this season in Lexington, the players are learning the fine points of American culture along with English. At the first class last week, teacher Gil Rosenberg had his students listen as Keith Elkins, the Legends' director of broadcasting and media relations, taped an interview with Altuve.
"It turned out good for me," Altuve said to Elkins, summing up a performance in which he hit a home run and stole a base the day before.
Rosenberg brought University of Kentucky student Myra Martinez, who speaks English and Spanish, to help the players practice their English.
With Martinez at one end of a boardroom table, the players — mostly single — read from a sheet of paper that said: Lesson One: questions to ask a young woman. "Do you like baseball?" they asked Martinez. "Do you like Kentucky?" "Do you know where I am from?"
The players are curious about how things work in America outside baseball, Rosenberg said.
They wanted to know what the term "rush" meant in the game of football. And one of the first things they talked to Rosenberg about was University of Kentucky men's basketball coach John Calipari.
"They know about Calipari," Rosenberg said.
So many minor-league players in the United States are from the Dominican Republic that on May 10, the Astros opened an academy there for players, many of whom are signed by U.S. teams as teenagers.
For 10 months, they will take intensive English lessons and learn about American culture as they hone their baseball skills.
Nearly every big-league club has opened similar facilities in the Dominican Republic, according to an Astros statement.
Many of the Latinos with the Legends are still in their first year. Some have played for other American teams. Some have been in the United States only briefly.
"The first year is always the toughest," Rowin said. "They are away from home, they are struggling with a new language, and they are trying to play baseball at the same time. If we can ease their minds on some of the language and culture, hopefully that will help them out on the field, too."
When they go to the mall to sign autographs, Rosenberg goes with them, and tells fans to ask questions that will help them with their English.
He also informally teaches the English-speaking players some Spanish words.
"I want the players to have the feeling that the Legends are like family and they are part of that family. They are wonderful young men," said Rosenberg, who also teaches sociology at Eastern Kentucky University and has worked with Latino immigrants in Central Kentucky for years.
He also serves as a driver to get players to class because they often do not choose to get a driver's license. Most live together in townhouses in Hamburg.
Rosenberg said that at this early stage in the classes, the players understand more English than they speak.
Martinez interpreted most of their interviews with the Herald-Leader.
"My English is so-so." said Miguel Arrendell, 22, an infielder from the Dominican Republic. "I want to learn everything."
Throughout the Houston Astros organization, there is usually at least one coach or manager for each team who is bilingual. If there is a total communication barrier, baseball hand signals fill the gap, Rowin said.
Legends manager Rodney Linares and pitching coach Rick Aponte are Dominican, Rowin said.
Going back home
Only a small percentage of players who come to play "America's game" will make it to the major leagues, according to Rowin. For those players who return to the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, English skills might mean better jobs at home, he said.
"One of the best things that a team could do is to provide the language skills for players so they can be much more part of the team and the community they are living in," said Richard Lipchick, the author of the University of Central Florida report on race and gender, and director of the Orlando school's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.
Jose Trinidad, 22, a right-handed Legends pitcher from the Dominican Republic, said he spends a lot of time practicing English.
He wants to avoid repeating an earlier incident when someone thought he was calling them "a bad name."
But, Trinidad said, "I was only talking about someone going to the beach." Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/23/1276391/americas-game-in-spanish-and-english.html?source=rss_teams_Kentucky_Wildcats#ixzz0tUEtgJBw

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