There were times when, as manager of the Red Sox' rookie league team in
Elmira, N.Y., in the late 1970s and early '80s, Dick Berardino would get
angry.
He'd gather the players into the clubhouse. He'd start his lecture.
But as he spoke, he could tell his message wasn't getting across to the
Latin players. Spanish was their main language, and they knew very
little English.
"All they knew was you were mad. And after a while they'd figure out
what it was you were mad about," recalled Berardino, now a player
development consultant for the Sox. "They'd hear things over and over
again, and they'd seem to get the message, eventually."
Things are a lot different today. No longer are teenagers from Latin
American countries simply shipped to the United States and told to
adjust to professional baseball while at the same time attempting to
combat homesickness and learn a new language and adapt to a new country.
Boston, and some other organizations, has opened up academies in the
Dominican Republic and Venezuela. There, the Red Sox instruct their
young signees on the English language and cultural issues they'll
encounter in the States, along with work on their baseball skills.
The Sox also have had scouting tentacles stretching to such countries as
Japan, Korea and Australia. But Latin America is the organization's main
focus for talent abroad, says Louie Eljaua, Boston's director of
international scouting.
"We have seen a lot of talent in Latin America. There have been impact
players coming out of there at the big-league level," said Eljaua, who
spent many years with the Marlins' scouting staff before joining the Sox
this year. "It has been like a frenzy there, with teams making scouting
those areas a priority, getting bigger and stronger in that area. About
10 years ago, when I was with the Marlins, there were a lot of teams
scouting those areas but (with) maybe with one or two scouts in each
country. Now organizations are putting up academies and have bigger
staffs."
The Sox began their Latin push under former general manager Dan
Duquette. He was instrumental in the organization's commitment to
foreign scouting and development.
"The Red Sox have always had a presence in the Latin market, moreso in
the last five years (under Duquette)," said Eljaua, "but now we're
trying to take it to another level, make it even better."
Over the last 12 months, the Red Sox have been putting the finishing
touches on a state-of-the-art academy in the Dominican Republic.
There are baseball fields, naturally, but also dorms in which there is a
weight room, a game room with VCRs and televisions and classrooms so the
Sox can teach what Eljaua calls "cross-cultural English." Teachers at
the academy take the English language beyond basic vocabulary and
grammar to such life skills as ordering food at a restaurant, opening a
bank account and learning about U.S. customs and laws.
Boston had about 60 players in the Dominican academy recently, according
to Ben Cherington, the Sox' director of player development. Eljaua
estimated that there were 20-25 in the organization's Venezuelan
academy. The numbers fluctuate a bit because once a certain baseball and
language proficiency has been met, the youngsters are brought to the
States to begin playing at the various Class A levels.
The players are housed in dorms at the academies. They stay at the
facility five or six days a week, generally going home Sunday and
returning Monday. There's a 10:30 curfew, and no one leaves without
permission.
The long days include a 7 a.m. wakeup call, breakfast, workouts in the
morning, and games in the afternoon in the Dominican Summer League (35
teams, a 70-game schedule for kids 17-20) and mandatory English classes
later.
The Sox have two teams in the Dominican Summer League this year, having
shifted their team from the Venezuela Summer League to the Dominican
league because of the volatile political situation in Venezuela.
"It's rare we sign a player and send him over right away," said Eljaua.
"They need the baseball instruction and the cultural instruction. You
have to prepare these kids. You have to remember that the Dominican
Republic is a third-world country. Most of the kids come from very poor
backgrounds."
The academies, and what they offer the youngsters, is important to the
Sox on more than one front, says Cherington.
"There are two reasons the organization sees this as important," said
Cherington. "From the standpoint of having a professional
responsibility, for our players as any organization would have for its
employees, I think it's important to give them as many life skills as
possible so they can succeed in some line of work outside of baseball
should baseball not be what they ultimately will make their living in.
"The goal from a purely selfish, competitive development standpoint is
to provide the players with resources and skills they need so that when
they are in the States playing, as much of their energy and focus as
possible can be put on the field. If you're in Augusta, Georgia, and you
don't know how to get to the field or how to order in a restaurant, it
probably means you're not comfortable in your environment, and if you're
not comfortable in your environment, you're not going to play well," he
said.
"It's pretty clear the players who are able to learn the English
language make the adjustment relatively quickly to the U.S. culture,"
continued Cherington. "You tend to see their development path quicken
considerably. Those Latino players have immediate success in the States
and are able to move through the system in a relatively quick manner.
There are exceptions, but there is a correlation there."
The organization also has changed the makeup of its staffs in the minor
leagues in an effort to aid the transition for the Latin players. On all
but one farm club (Sarasota) there's at least one Spanish-speaking coach.
Red Sox manager Grady Little wishes that had been the case in 1985, when
he was managing the Atlanta Braves' minor league team in Kinston, N.C.
"All five of my starting pitchers were young and all they spoke was
Spanish," said Little with a smile at the memory. "There was very little
English from them and I couldn't carry on much of a conversation with
any of them
"But I was fortunate that year to have a bilingual third baseman. You
know, being bilingual just assured him a job of playing every day
because he would come to the mound with me every time I'd go out there
to talk to a pitcher. It made things a lot easier for me."
The story didn't have a happy ending for the third baseman.
"We struggled in the first half and the third baseman was getting a
little tired and I needed a better defensive player at third base," said
Little. "So I was able to bring in a Latin coach, a bilingual coach."
The third baseman lost his job. And in "(the) second half, we were a
good club," said Little.
The bottom line?
"Communication is very important," said Little, "especially at the lower
level."
