Interpreters in MLB

Great article. I didn't see a link on the first post, but I was able to find the article here.

The international schools in Japan are well represented in MLB as Kei Igawa's interpreter went to ASIJ (The American School in Japan) while Hideki Matsui's interpreter graduated from St. Mary's International School.

It is unfortunate that the interpreters are supposed to act as baby-sitters (as Cashman said: "It's not just translating. It's assimilating them into the new culture"). This is an insult to interpreters who have undergone rigorous training. It also shows a serious misunderstanding of the role of the professional interpreter. It seems like the Yankees should be able to afford a baby-sitter/cultural assimilator as well. (Sorry if this is too far off the baseball subject.)

I don't think it's an insult at all, actually - I mean, it's true, the players are going to need help understanding English things outside of the ballpark too, right? Plus, the fact that the interpreter gets to spend so much time with the player means that they can get to know their personality better, and thus translate what they say more fully - rather than just the direct meaning of the words, they'll also get the implied meanings and nuances that you pick up mostly by spending a lot of time around someone. And thus the player's meaning will come out more fully in interviews and such because of the interpreter's ability to do more than just translate, but to interpret as well.

(Also maybe in Igawa's case, does he actually speak in Ibaraki-ben or was the "Dappe" nickname just a joke? Because I mean, depending on whether the interpreter is good with that dialect it probably also helps to spend a lot of time listening to him for that purpose as well.)