Of Baseball and Language

October 20, 2009

Ok, it’s downright London-like outside right now. Not that I’ve ever been to London, but I’ve heard it’s generally grey and cool with mist in the air all the time. It has been this way here for two straight days now. And apparently at the same time, it’s been nice and sunny and unseasonably warm in Michigan. Go figure.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to share my favorite things about watching the MLB baseball playoffs in Nicaragua, which I’ve done most nights for the past two weeks:

One: DOMINADO! A pop-up is never just a pop-up as far as the Spanish-speaking announcers are concerned. Almost every time one happens, they have to shout “Dominado!”, which means “dominated,” to convey that the batter just got dominated by the pitcher. I laugh every time, because it’s such a strong (and sexual) way to describe a routine play.

Two: Ponche! This is the word for “Strikeout.” But, as you can see, it looks and sounds like the English word “punch,” which kind of makes some sense, because de vez en cuando you hear English-speaking announcers say “punch-out” to describe a strikeout. But again, it’s a much stronger, and in this case onomatopoetic description of the situation; I personally imagine the announcers giving the air in front of them a shadow-punch every time they say it. On a related note, tonight, after Ervin “Magic” Santana (who stole his nickname from Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and by which the announcers refer to him altogether more often than would be appropriate in English) fanned a Yankee to end the second inning (and as I was typing this it just happened again to end the 6th), the announcer shouted “SIENTATE!” which for you non-español speakers is the command “Sit down!”

Three strikes, you’re out: Jardineros? Some things just don’t translate very well between Spanish and English. In baseball, this dilemma has generally been resolved by co-opting words from English into Spanish: a hit is still a hit, a base is still a base, and a home run is still a home run. But some things get more ridiculous when they’re translated into Spanish. Like the words “outfield” and “outfielders.” A field is a campo in Spanish, but the word “Campesino” is used to mean peasant, or generally poor, indigenous, rural farmer. So instead, an outfielder is a “jardinero,” or gardener, who labors in “jardín derecho” (right garden) or perhaps in “jardín izquierdo” (left garden). Also, when describing the strike-zone, “afuera” translates well for “outside,” but the word for “inside,” “adentro,” is reserved for meaning inside of something, like a house. Instead, they say “abierta,” or “open,” which really doesn’t make any sense to me as someone who learned the language after already having a fully-formed English vocabulary. “Lanzador” for “pitcher,” on the other hand, is both a cooler word and one whose meaning (thrower), is more apt than the English equivalent, arguably.