December 15, 2006

Lost In Translation

For those of you who watched the Matsuzaka press conference yesterday evening, Matsuzaka's "translator" is a Boras employee named Tak Sato. With any luck, he's out of a job this morning.

He was horrible -- guaranteeing the Q&A would be worthless. Daisuke would speak for a minute -- laughing, gesturing -- and Sato would offer one short, inaudible sentence in fractured English. Or, as he said a couple of times, "Engrish".

Theo could have wandered out on Landsdowne Street and dragged in the first Asian-looking guy he saw and things probably would have gone smoother. ... Sato "struggled to communicate Matsuzaka's answers" and "his command of the English language was shaky".

The Herald was blunt:
Matsuzaka's translator was universally panned by the English-speaking media, which discovered afterward that many of the pitcher's responses were shortened, changed or butchered. Members of the Japanese media helped provide the accurate comments.
The Globe has a transcript. It is far from complete -- and some things I remember are missing -- but this exchange gives you a flavour of the proceedings:
Q. Welcome and I wonder if you could tell us at what point in these negotiations that you realized that you would be coming to the Red Sox, and did you have your doubts that this day would come to pass?

Matsuzaka: My nickname is Japan is Monster.
If anyone can find Dice's actual answers to the media's questions, that would be great.

P.S. Both the Herald and Globe have stories about how the deal almost fell through at the last minute. ... Some great quotes about Dice from Craig Shipley, Boston's vice president of professional and international scotuing.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

FYI: http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2006/12/sox_get_donnell.html

Zenslinger said...

I'm glad the world is such that at least people know things like this. Though it's too bad someone better wasn't on hand to interpret.

allan said...

Thanks, Greg.

I meant that line as a joke, but I really have to wonder why the Sox did not have their own employee there. Was this something that Boras insisted on?

When we heard the Japanese reporters translating their own questions in flawless English, it showed even more how DM got screwed at his big Boston introduction.

Anonymous said...

Give Dice Man the ball and have V-Tek put down the number 1 - see how A-Rod translates that! MERRY CHRISTMAS! Get the truck moving, start the season already!

allan said...

Dan, post your comments only once, please.

Posting the same thing 5 times in 8 minutes is not cool.