BLOG: Language Is Important For Communication

Before last night's game Jerry Remy made a public apology regarding comments he made during a visit to the mound by Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild. However the Yankees Japanese translator joined Rothschild on his trip to mound to talk to four-year veteran starter Masahiro Tanaka.

Remy made an in-game comment that he was not a fan of translators going to the mound with coaches and managers. His exact words were to pitchers to "learn baseball language." As soon as he said this the sirens and red-lights went off. It was picked up by the social media outlet, Sports Funhouse, almost immediately and the outrage began.

While Remy's comments may have been controversial and insensitive, they were far from any form of racism. There was nothing demeaning about it and was not poking fun. It was as Boston Herald columnist Steve Buckley mentioned in his column today, Remy is coming from a different time.

Today baseball much more  global then it was when Remy played. Baseball is crazy popular these days in Japan, the Caribbean and Latin America.  More players are coming into the country without speaking or knowing a lick of English. It is difficult. Translators make it easier for coaches to communicate - verbally.

With that being said there are many other forms of communication. It's not just talking. Body language, gestures and facial expressions are also forms of communication. Now it is difficult for those players who are in their first year in the country and have no idea what's going on but the longer you stay in the country the more you will up the culture. The more you do that the better you will be able to communicate effectively. It's like business. The more you're around it the more you understand it.


As Tom Cruise pointed out in A Few Good Men with a re-direct of Noah Wylie, you don't need the Guantanamo Bay standard operating procedure handbook to "find the mess hall." You will pick it up by "following the crowd at chow time." It's no different in MLB. Foreign players will find ways to fit in and communicate effectively. Translators just help bridge the gap.

But also another question arises. There were some trying to equate Remy's comments to those made by former Phillies HOF third baseman Mike Schmidt about Odubel Herrera being a  player Philadelphia can build around. Schmidt found himself in some hot water when he told a Philadelphia radio station "It's a language barrier. Because of that I think [Herrera] can't be a guy that would sort of sit in the a circle with four, five American players and talk about the game."

There are no negative racial undertones about this statement. Schmidt was stating a fact but it is incomplete. In the overly PR conscience world that we live in what the HOF third baseman should have said was "Herrera can be that guy the Phillies build around by what he gives you on the field but I would be hesitant to thrust him into a leadership role of the team right now. He's only in his third year, he still needs some seasoning in the art of leading a team."

Part of that "seasoning" is being able to sit in the clubhouse with the guys and have a conversation. The host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, mentions this is one of the reasons he found his ability to speak several other languages was successful. Growing up in South Africa during Apartheid, he was an outcast because he was born to a black woman and white man. He didn't look like anyone and no one looked like him. But when he was able to speak to each group in their native language he felt more like them even if he didn't look like them.

Noah attributed it to when he watched American re-runs dubbed in the South African language versus when they were in English. It goes for everything else in life when others sound like you, you are more apt to turn to them opposed if they are different.

Language is important for effective communication. The hard part is mastering it.