Japanese Players in MLB

Yes, I believe Japanese players are perfectionists and that quality prevents them from trying to speak English if front of a large group of people. Former Dodger teammate Tom Candiotti once said that Nomo speaks and understands more English than he lets on.

Also, you're incorrect when you say that the only Japanese player who speaks English fluently is Shige Hasegawa. Mac Suzuki also speaks English fluently, which is understandable since he's lived in the U.S. since he was 16 or so.

> Dear Japanese Baseball.com,
>
> Japanese players are awesome!!! Ichiro is the best
> player I've ever seen. Bobby Valentine predicted
> before the 2001 season that Ichiro will win the
> Rookie of the Year, the Batting Title and the Most
> Valuable Player and he was absolutely right. I
> didn't think Bobby V. will get all his predictions
> right, but he proved me wrong.
>
> Just wondering, why is it that most Japanese players
> in the Major leagues don't make an effort to learn to
> speak English in front of the American media? Nomo
> has been in the Majors for seven years and he still
> needs an interpreter. Foreign players in the Majors
> from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, etc. learn to
> speak English fairly well. They don't have perfect
> English, but it's good enough to understand. Are
> Japanese Players embarrassed to speak English, unless
> it's perfect? The only Japanese player that speaks
> English fluently is Shigetoshi Hasegawa.
>
> Thanks for your time.

Well, it takes time and effort to learn a foreign language well enough to speak to the media, time and effort that the players would rather spend on keeping their game sharp. The media asks complicated questions and expects answers with some level of sophistication, so it's easier to use interpreters. Latin American players spend years in the minor leagues using English, so they are in somewhat of a better position to use it with the media, while most Japanese players are used to speaking to the media in Japanese all during their years in Japan. Hasegawa has wanted to live and play in the U.S. since he was college, so he studied English in his spare time in Japan. Consequently, he can speak it as well as most Latin players. But to expect Nomo to have the ability to speak with the media in English, even after six years, is a little much. The media gets more clear, concise and coherent answers through an interpreter. Personally, I think some Latin players may be better off using an interpreter at times...

There are several reasons most Japanese players don't speak English to the American Media...

1. It takes years to master the language well enough to not sound like an idiot and who needs that.

2. You're paying an interpreter - use him.

3. The US media makes no effort to speak Japanese. Most of them have a hard time with English!

4. Athletes shouldn't speak anyway. Just like Actors and Supermodels, most have nothing to say and when they do they say something it's usually somthing rediculously cliche or stupid. Athletes do it because they have to, not because they want to. If most had their way they'd never do media appearances. As it is, few Pro Athletes have any respect for the media which is why Ichiro had his little boycott last season.

However, Japanese soccer players playing overseas have been expected to learn the local languages. Nakata does interviews in Italian. Both Shoji Jo and Nishizawa only had an interpreter for the first few months of their stay in Spain. Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi was answering interview questions in English from his first day in England. The other day Shinji Ono was answering to an interview in English, though he has only been in Europe for less than a year. Shinji Ono has also been studying Dutch, since he plays in the Netherlands.

From what I have read a lot of the Japanese soccer players with overseas aspirations start studying the language of their "dream" county while they are still in Japan. Nakamura of the Yokahama F Marinos has been studying Spanish for the last few years, but his transfer to Real Madrid only happened this year.

It isn't true that Latin ballplayers in MLB routinely learn English. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays have a full time Spanish interpreter who is as busy as the English interpreter on any team in J-Ball. Let's recognize also that very few Americans playing in Japan bother to learn Japanese. Why should Japanese players need to learn English? They're (probably) not going to remain forever in the country in which they've found employment.

Try to think of yourself at 30 years old learning how to speak Japanese. Its not the same when you try to crossover from Spanish to English. Japanese and English have completely different grammatical structure and syntax. Its the same thing for MLB player in Japan. 95% of them can't speak any Japanese. Alphonso Soriano of the NY Yankees speaks fluent Japanese because he came to Japan as a teenager.

Language education in Japan is notoriously imperfect. Robert Whiting speaks of university graduates who can read Shakespeare but can't say hello. Secondary school teachers of English come to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg each summer to perfect their own spoken English, and it's a struggle for them - like my own struggles with Japanese and Spanish. Face it, folks: it is too much to expect of a temporary resident that they speak the local language perfectly.

I have to correct Seiyu-san: Alphonso Soriano of the Yankees doesn't speak fluent Japanese. He can say a few phrases, but that's it. I saw him on ESPN talking with Peter Gammons and Tomo Ohka and his Japanese was not exactly fluent, and that's understandable since he only spent a few years here in Japan.

Timo Perez of the Mets, on the other hand, speaks Japanese a lot better than Soriano, enough to be able to answer simple questions in Japanese during interviews. The fact that he speaks better Japanese than Soriano is also understandable since Perez spent more time with the Carp than Soriano. Since Perez doesn't speak English all that well yet, it's rumored that Shinjo's interpreter would interpret questions in English from the American media into Japanese for him and Perez would answer back in Japanese for Shinjo's interpreter to interpret into English.

Isn't it true that at the Carp's Dominican academy they
do a certain amount of Japanese instruction? Of course, that by no means ensures that a player will take to the language since the kids who go to that academy are there as ballplayers and not as language students.

By the way, the other night, in a broadcast of a Dodgers game against the Padres with Nomo pitching, ESPN had pitching coach Jim Colborn wired up, so we got to hear him speak Japanese to Nomo. What Colborn told Nomo was pretty simple (just stuff about knowing the signs for throwing over to first or second base, don't pitch in a rush, and that it was his game), so it's hard to assess just how broad Colborn's Japanese knowledge is.

The play by play guy (whose name I can never remember,
but he's the balding guy who is paired up with Joe Morgan) had a Japanese dictionary with him to try to
figure out how to say things in Japanese just in the spirit of having Nomo pitch and trying to have fun with it. Considering he doesn't know jack about Japanese, he actually didn't do too bad. Nothing approaching a faux pas at all.

The play by play man on ESPN's Sunday night shows is Jon Miller, ex-Orioles broadcaster. The previous week in Seattle, he and Little Joe had fun with the ballpark sushi served at Safeco Field (Ichi-Roll, Daimajin-Roll etc).