Spring Training is officially over. The Big Leagues have chosen who will be in "the Big Show", and who needs more preparation, rehabilitation or just maturation. For those of you who are in Spanish or Japanese Immersion, this season offers you a new theme to build your lessons around, as baseball is a passion in many Spanish speaking countries, Japan, and of course the USA! Baseball and Spanish are very close to my heart. Our son, Caleb, started playing baseball in Venezuela at age 6, and let me tell you in Venezuela they are SERIOUS about their 6 year old baseball players! No T-ball for them! Give them just a few weeks of coach pitch, and send them out there like the big boys! They practice 2-3 hours on each of their practice days. I remember many times seeing Caleb eat supper with his eyes closed, and his head just about falling into his plate, he was so tired. But he never wanted to give it up! With no worries about Winter weather in Latin America, the kids play baseball almost the entire school year. If they are a winning team and make it to national playoffs, they can be playing 12 months out of the year! That's one reason why you see so many Latin players in the Big Leagues these days: they've been training for this since they were 6 years old!
Many children in Latin America who do not have access to "little league" baseball, play their own version of street ball using broom sticks (palos) and metal bottle caps (chapas). What terrific training for finding that "sweet spot" on both the bat and the ball! Another thing that I always appreciated about raising our children in Venezuela was the "single sport focus"; that is, the parents weren't as driven to put their children into every sport available. You just picked one (for the most part) and stuck with it. While that might seem very limiting to us in the US, I saw how it helped our own children focus on a particular activity, and to hone their skills in that area. I truly believe that that ability to focus on one thing, and do it well, is an invaluable life skill, especially in light of our world of multi-tasking/multi-distractions.
That leads me back to the start of the 2012 Baseball season. We are so fortunate to have a minor league team, the West Michigan Whitecaps (part of the Detroit Tigers organization) right here in Grand Rapids! These players are just starting their professional baseball careers. They're fired up, nervous, over-confident, shy, and many of them do not speak English. We have had players in Grand Rapids from Japan, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Mexico. If you're fortunate enough to live near a minor league team, such as the WhiteCaps, I highly recommend that you check with their business office to invite a player to your classroom. I've had players from Venezuela, the DR, and Puerto Rico in our Immersion program. We usually have them visit individual classrooms to speak to the students in Spanish about their life as a baseball player, their favorite foods, colors, etc. and always end with a time for the players to give the students their signatures. While it doesn't take much time from either your day or the players' lives, it reaps rich dividends in "real life" interaction in the target language, and sometimes begins some very special relationships between the players and the kids. I think we've actually helped ticket sales because of the visits! :)
I'll leave you with this commercial that highlights playing baseball in Venezuela with "chapas y palos":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ztZ2ww6zg
Play ball!
~Sheryl René
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