A Whole New Ballgame

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, August 25, 2003

BY STEVEN KRASNER
Journal Sports Writer

Jesus Alou was 16 years old when he came to the United States from the Dominican Republic to play professional baseball in 1958. He knew no English, so his new minor-league teammates offered him schooling.

One day, as Alou was walking to the ballpark, the manager's wife pulled alongside in her car and asked him if he wanted a ride.

Alou answered with the only English he had been taught to that date.

"Hey, I don't give a (bleep)," he said.

That was then.

This is now:

Brian Whelan, the Red Sox' Latin education co-ordinator based at the organization's minor-league complex in Fort Myers, Fla., holds classes in the hotel where the players stay. He meets with the 16- and 17-year-olds three times a week for roughly 45 minutes per session, drilling them on conversational English, useful words, and questions that will benefit the players in the baseball lifestyle.

"The focus isn't so much on grammar," said Whelan, 29, who played shortstop for the University of Massachusetts-Boston before working with Major League Baseball-International, which led him to the Sox' job this year. "The objective is to get them functional. We want them to be able to communicate, to understand and to express themselves -- to be able to ask the right questions when they're opening a bank account, for instance. They don't have to be perfect, but fundamentally we want them to feel confident."

"We give them situations," said Whelan. "Like, 'Today we go to an airport. Gonzalez, you're at the desk. Arias, you have two bags to check. Go ahead and talk.' They have to ad-lib it. You can teach a language but if you don't use it, it's kind of a waste of those classes. So we encourage them to use it."

Whelan is more than just their English teacher. He's around the ballpark with them all day, driving the players in the van to and from the hotel, getting to know them and having the players get to know him, so they'll feel comfortable asking him questions.

"I build up a comfort level with them and that's important. So if they make some mistakes with me, it's no big deal," said Whelan. "They'll come to me and say, 'Can you ask the equipment manager to give me an extra hat?' I know they can do that themselves, so I'll encourage them.' Then when they do, they feel good about themselves.

Whelan's job is one the organization takes seriously.

"We feel the classes they take are as important to them as taking batting practice and fielding ground balls," said Louie Eljaua, the Sox' director of International Scouting.

"Knowing English doesn't cause them to play better," added Whelan, "but the kids who want to learn tend to do better on the field, too, because they have that certain mentality that they want to learn and get better."

The Sox try to help that development by making the Spanish-speaking players more comfortable as they get spread around the minor-league system.

"Our goal is that when they get beyond the A-ball level, we'll have given them all the language skills to help them with cultural adjustments," said Ben Cherington, the Sox' director of player development. "They don't need the crutch then as much as they might in A-ball. There (beginning in Double A) you might have players helping each other.

"We assume as they go up the (minor-league ladder) they're going to start doing pretty much everything in English, but you have to be cognizant and aware if you're losing kids, because if someone really is struggling to understand, you have to do a little more instruction," said Cherington.

Adding players from Korea and Japan, though, creates another complication.

"The Far East is a different challenge," said Cherington. "For Spanish-speaking players, there are a lot of people who speak Spanish in the States.

"For our Asian players, that's not necessarily the case. There aren't that many people of Korean or Japanese descent in Fort Myers. If there are, they're not hanging around City of Palms Park."

At some point, though, Cherington realizes the organization has to push them out of the nest to fend for themselves.

"The big question is, when do you sort of cut them loose? If you do hold their hand too long, are you enabling them to count on you without taking responsibility for themselves and their own development?

"I certainly don't think we have all the answers, but I think the balance lies somewhere in providing them a good foundation and resources and having a good feel for when they're starting to get it and feeling confident that I can send him here or there and he's going to figure it out. If you feel you're at that point, maybe you push him a little bit, and that's what we try to do."