A young Latin American ballplayer walks into a restaurant in a minor league city knowing only a few words of English.
Among them are pizza and steak.
And so that is what he subsists on for an entire summer.
Baseball is rife with such stories.
Josh Rodland is doing what he can to change that.
The 23-year-old Snohomish native is in his second season as a translator/ teacher in the Detroit Tigers minor league system. Based in Lakeland, Fla., he works with Latin players on the Tigers’ rookie team in the Gulf Coast League.
And if that sounds like a cool job, Rodland agrees. It is.
“It’s been a dream job,” he said. “Baseball, Spanish and working with young people.”
A dream job that just kind of fell out of the sky.
His older brother Eric was playing for the Tigers’ team in the Class A Florida State League last summer, and one day was talking with Laurie Soltman, the Tigers’ coordinator of international player programs. She mentioned that they wanted to hire someone to help young Latin players learn English.
Eric told her that his brother had majored in Spanish and had spent time in Costa Rica in a study program. A couple of weeks later, Josh was in Lakeland meeting his new challenge.
A 2005 graduate of Whitworth College in Spokane, Josh had been hired to teach Spanish and serve as an assistant coach in football and baseball at Centralia High School last year, so the Tigers’ job fit nicely into his schedule.
Not only was he schooled in Spanish, he knew baseball, having played it in high school and college before knee problems cut short his career. “Josh was the answer to a prayer,” Soltman said.
But most important, he related well with people. “Josh has been outstanding,” Soltman said by telephone recently. “His strength is his personality. He truly cares about the players as human beings.”
His brother concurs. “He’s a great guy,” Eric said from Little Rock, Ark., where he plays for the Arkansas Travelers. “He loves the (Latin) culture, he loves the people.”
This summer Josh has 15 players under his tutelage, divided into two groups, beginners and advanced. A large part of the English teaching process goes on while he’s on the field with the players during batting practice – shagging flies and hitting fungoes – and in the dugout during games answering any questions they might have and acting as a translator between players and the coaching staff.
Josh also conducts three 1 1/2-hour English classes during the week. “We start from scratch, basic stuff, baseball phrases, baseball terminology,” he said in a telephone interview. “We teach them how to order in a restaurant and go to the store and buy necessities. We want them to understand instruction from our coaches and play the game without translators.”
Anything that helps them make the transition to a new culture easier.
Josh tries to conduct the classes in English as much as possible, but if he senses that the students are struggling, he switches to Spanish. “He has a good feel for that,” Soltman said.
Some players are eager to learn, realizing that if they are going to make it in baseball, they’ll not only have to play the game well, but understand the language of the game, most of which is conducted in English. But then there are other players, Josh said, who are not as amenable to learning, feeling that as long as they have their Latin teammates around them speaking Spanish, there is no need to learn another language.
Pride can also be a barrier to learning. These kids are obviously good players or the Tigers wouldn’t have signed them. “It’s intimidating for them to put their pride aside and try to learn a language,” Josh said. “Successful baseball players are not used to failing.”
He firmly believes, however, that “inside, they all want to learn.”
Latin players come from different countries, some of which have better educational systems than others, and when they’re thrown into a classroom together, it’s the teacher’s job to find out how far along – or how far behind – they are to understand the challenges they face. For example, Josh noted, where a kid from the Dominican Republic might have gone only to the third grade and seen baseball as his “only way off the island,” a youngster from Puerto Rico might have more opportunities to make a living outside the game.
Understanding how competitive these kids are, Josh devises contests for them in the classroom. In one game, two players are armed with flyswatters, and when they hear a word in English, they swat the word in Spanish on the blackboard.
“They’re great kids,” Josh said. “That’s the pleasure of my job – laughing and having fun with them.”
Referred to as “teacher” by his players, Josh is more than just an instructor. He’s also “kind of a big brother,” as he lives in the same dorm with them.
The big brother has to make sure everyone is attending class and if they aren’t, they get fined, as a couple learned the hard way last year. “When you get 15 kids together, there are always going to be one or two who rub you the wrong way,” he said, “but this year has been a blessing.”
Just as this job has been a blessing.
With more and more foreign players entering the game, and with Major League teams opening baseball academies in Latin American countries, additional opportunities are becoming available for people with bilingual skills – just in case Josh ever tires of public education.
Incidentally, the man who suggested him for the job, brother Eric, isn’t with the Tigers anymore. During the offseason, he was traded to the Los Angeles Angels, and was the starting second baseman on the North Division team for the Southern League all-star game at mid-season.
There are two other Rodland brothers, but only one is still playing baseball. Kevin will attend the University of Arizona on a baseball scholarship this fall.
Meanwhile, Jefff is a student at Whitworth and, according to Josh, “holds his own in ultimate Frisbee and rock climbing.”
“If we had a bunch of Rodlands,” Soltman said, “we’d be in great shape.”
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