MLB Teams Ordered to Hire Spanish Interpreters for 2016 Season
All Major League Baseball teams are now required to hire their own Spanish interpreters for the 2016 season. The move is part of the "Spanish-language translator program" initiated by MLB and the player's league union.
The new directive, which was announced on Tuesday, is expected to be in place by April 3 -- the 2016 season's opening day. The implementation of the order only shows that translators are very important for players, especially for Latinos.
ESPN writer, Jerry Crasnick tweeted on Tuesday: "#MLB clubs have received memo telling them they need to have full-time Latin translators for 2016. Joint effort between MLB and union."
Based on the 2015 Racial and Gender Report Card for MLB, more than 25 percent of the players in the league were from Spanish-speaking countries, thus the policy is necessary for effective communication among the players and the media as well.
One of the translators for Rockies' Kazuo Matsui highlighted the importance of interpreters in the ballpark. Yoshitaka Ono said that post-game interviews are inevitable, but Matsui's English skills is not that good yet so he had to step in.
"We were in this conference room with 50 to 100 reporters, doing lots of interviews in lots of countries," Ono said.
At any rate, the Major League's own record showed that many players speak Spanish and they came from various Latin countries with Dominican Republic having 83 players, Venezuela with 65, Cuba with 18, Puerto Rico with 13, Mexico with nine and Colombia with four players in the union, ESPN reported.
In the past, there were already translators on the field. However, it was not until the memo on Tuesday that the employment of interpreters has been formalized and added to the requisites for all clubs.
Nevertheless, seeing the total figures for Spanish speakers in the professional baseball clubs, it is surprising that the "translator" policy was not enforced much sooner. But sure enough, this is really beneficial for all teams.
MLB does not push players to learn and speak English, but they have programs where everyone in the organization can sign up if they wish to learn. Then again, it may take a long time for adults to become fluent in a foreign language and this is the downside of having to learn now, so having interpreters is the best and fastest option for the players to comfortably communicate with fans and the press people during interviews, CBS Sports has learned.
Finally, this new policy is expected to be helpful to all sides -- players, team officials, league staffs and the media. Spanish-speaking players will now have full-time interpreters by their side so the language barrier is effectively lifted leading to better and easier communication.
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