A Whole New Ballgame

11:55 AM EDT on Monday, August 25, 2003

BY STEVEN KRASNER
Journal Sports Writer

Pedro Martinez has a knack for turning a phrase . . . or have you forgotten the time he offered to drill Babe Ruth in the backside if someone would be kind enough to wake him up?

Entertaining, yes. But unique, as well.

Pedro Martinez isn't afraid to speak English. It's his second language, but he's more articulate than many ballplayers -- and, indeed, some citizens -- who have lived in the United States all their lives.

"I take as much pride in (the ability to speak English well) as I take in striking out somebody because, believe me, the toughest adjustment (for Latin players) is not really playing baseball. It's adjusting to the culture and the language," said Martinez.

AP photo Red Sox ace Pedro martinez has taken great pains to learn the English language since his arrival in the U.S. and to urge his younger Latin teammates to do the same.

His older brother, Ramon, was already in the Dodgers' organization -- one ahead of its time in giving English lessons to its Spanish-speaking players -- when Martinez signed with Los Angeles. Even before he signed, though, he borrowed Ramon's workbooks and studied them, heeding his older brother's advice that knowing English would help him in both his baseball career and in his everyday life.

After joining the Dodgers and attending the organization's academy in the Dominican Republic, Martinez realized early on that he was able to pick up the language quickly. When he was riding the buses in the minors, he would put on headphones and listen to tapes of English that stressed vocabulary, sentences and dialogue.

"Once I got hooked into English and I saw how things were easier for me than the average (Latin) player, I really was serious about it," he said. "So I had to go on, go on, as deep as I could to learn more and more English. I kept practicing."

It didn't always go smoothly. "I would fall into traps from some of the American players," admitted Martinez.

Such as the day he and his teammates were on a bus in Great Falls, Mont., and they spotted two good-looking young women.

"One of the guys said to me, 'Pedro, look at the girls,' " recalled Martinez. "So I look at the girls. Then he said to me, 'Pedro, tell them they have nice (breasts).' I hear the word nice, so I think this is something good to say. So I say, 'Nice (breasts).' One girl gave me the middle finger.

"I realized that was a trap, that the expression was a bad expression. That's how I learned, by making mistakes."

And there were mistakes. He struggled to try to understand what his teammates from around the United States, as well as the people in the Great Falls, were saying.

"It was very hard that first year in Great Falls because they had an accent, first of all," said Martinez. "They used words I wasn't used to hearing anywhere in baseball, and there's not a large Hispanic community there. And then (on the team) I got caught in between Africans, people from Texas, Florida and North Carolina, and the two other Latins we had on the team -- Raul Mondesi and a catcher named Junior Perez.

"I lived with an American family in Montana. It was just really difficult to communicate with people from all parts of the country. And sometimes if they were too loud or spoke too quickly or I couldn't pick up the accent, I couldn't understand. I was like, 'What is it? I don't know English or what?' If they spoke one-on-one to me, I could understand."

But the Latin players are different than American players in another way, says Martinez.

"A lot of people don't realize Latin players are very sensitive," said Martinez. "We live in a different culture where kids don't leave the house until they're finally married and find their own home. It doesn't matter how old you are. If you are not married, you have the tendency to stay with your parents.

"So when we come over here, it's a very tough adjustment to make, not only the food and how to order it, and how to adjust to all the other things, but not being able to express yourself is the biggest frustration for Dominican players."

Eventually, though, he began to reap the benefits of speaking English.

"I could communicate such things as frustration and soreness," he said. "It was being able to tell the difference between being sore and having pain, telling that to the trainers. Sometimes you say 'pain,' and the next thing you know they send you to the MRI machine. Say 'sore' and they give you a massage."

Martinez has gotten so good with the English language, and is so proud of that fact, that there have been times when he has served as an interpreter in the Red Sox' clubhouse. During one spring training, Martinez stood out in the sun translating questions from English to Spanish for pitching prospect Robinson Checo and then relaying Checo's answers to the English-speaking media.

He is held up as a model by the Sox to their young Latins, who are receiving instruction on the language and the U.S. culture before they are brought to this country.

"Pedro is the best case," said Louie Eljaua, the Sox' director of international scouting. "That's what you hope for, not only to be able to perform like that on the field, but that he can grasp the language the way he has and can deal with the media."

As a superstar in the major leagues, Martinez always is sought out by younger Latins, particularly Dominicans, in the States and in his native country. He often is asked for his advice. There's one bit of advice he dispenses freely.

"I advise my compatriots to learn English," he said, "and understand that learning the English language is just as important for them as learning the game."