SEATTLE – Ken Barron remembers the first time he stepped into a Major League Baseball stadium, a Mariners game in the Kingdome in 1991 when he was 11.
Like so many other kids in Seattle, he was smitten by the vast field of green as he walked into the stadium and the stars playing the game. He envisioned the day he would reach the major leagues himself and work on the same stage as baseball heroes like Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez.
Antony Suzuki had that same dream growing up in Hawaii, and he chased it all the way to a college baseball program in Japan, where he learned the discipline and work ethic needed to become an elite player.
Today, they’re both in the big leagues. Neither got there the way they had dreamed.
Barron, 27, and Suzuki, 29, work for the Mariners as interpreters for their two Japanese stars, center fielder Ichiro Suzuki and catcher Kenji Johjima.
“Once in a while I take step back and ask myself, ‘Is this really happening?’” Barron said. “I grew up in Seattle. I grew up loving the Mariners.”
Life with the Mariners is a daily “pinch me” moment for the two interpreters, who are privy to such inside parts of the game as pregame meetings to discuss scouting reports and in-game strategy discussions in the dugout.
“Sometimes I’ll translate for a very intense baseball-related meeting and sometimes I’ll translate a joke,” Barron said.
Early this month, Barron stood front-and-center on one of baseball’s biggest stages at the All-Star Game in San Francisco. When Ichiro won the All-Star MVP award and was honored on the field after the game, Barron stood at his side interpreting his words into English for the worldwide TV broadcast.
“Like good friends always do, when I came back to Seattle my buddies gave me a rough time about how nervous I looked,” Barron said. “I assure you I wasn’t as nervous as they say I was.”
Barron calls working with Ichiro the ultimate learning experience.
“This guy is as professional as they get,” Barron said. “There’s a lot to be learned from that, in the way that he prepares himself not only physically but mentally. Even through that, he has been very nice to me and he has been very friendly to me.
“Not only Ichiro, but Johjima too. The way they prepare for the game and approach the game, anybody can learn if you’re around them. It’s a great lesson in how you can approach your job and handle your job.”
Like so many jobs that seem like nothing but glamour, there’s another side to the glitz of the big leagues. The interpreters are just like their major league superstars in that the eight-month grind can be exhausting. They’re alongside Ichiro and Johjima from the beginning of spring training in February to the last day of the season in September and, like the players, their workdays begin long before the games start every evening.
“There are times when it becomes tiring,” Barron said. “Once the season starts – the first day of spring training – these players very rarely get a day off. When there is a day off, most of the time we’re traveling to another city. You’re very busy working and doing what you need to do.”
For a night game, Barron reports to work around 1 p.m. and spends time in the office preparing to interpret that day with the media, players and coaches, plus requests the organization may have. When the players show up about an hour later, he goes to the clubhouse and tends to their needs.
Antony Suzuki devotes a big part of his time poring through scouting reports and translating those for Johjima. Then he sits through the meetings – pitchers and hitters meetings on the first day of every series and daily meetings with that night’s starting pitcher – translating for Johjima.
Game time often is Barron’s down time, and he spends a few innings in the press box before reporting back to the clubhouse to handle anything Ichiro may need after the game.
Antony Suzuki remains in the dugout during games and helps Johjima communicate with pitchers, the manager and coaches during discussions of strategy. He relies considerably on his own knowledge of the game, much of it gained when he played college ball in Japan.
“If I don’t know what’s going on, there’s no way I can interpret for him,” said Suzuki, who worked with the San Diego Padres and interpreted for Japanese pitcher Akinori Otsuka when he played there.
“I don’t want to make any mistakes during a game,” Antony Suzuki said. “In Japan, they say ‘do baseball’ and not ‘play baseball.’ I know how these guys feel about baseball.”
He also realizes how fortunate he is to work a behind-the-scenes job in the major leagues that most baseball fans can only imagine.
“I get to be inside the clubhouse and right there in the dugout during the games,” Antony Suzuki said. “It’s a dream come true because I’m here in the big leagues.”
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