No Spanish

[ls317]

METHUEN, Mass. (AP) -- Coaches on a Little League team filed a protest with the league after an umpire ordered the players to stop speaking Spanish during a state tournament game this week.

Coaches said the order demoralized the Methuen players and cost the team the game.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/more/07/29/ll.spanish.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. What a crock

Second bad little league story this week.

[Selatius]

2. I honestly don't know how to take this

The umpire could have at least requested folks talk in English so he would be better able to understand what is going on first before resorting to making it a rule to talk in English only. This is only an issue of respect.

As far as it demoralizing the team so they lost.......I don't know and would rather sit on the fence on this one.

[jobycom]

4. More than respect. Freedom of expression.

[jobycom]

3. Wow. I'd hate to see what he'd do to deaf people

The coach should have kept the team focused after that, but it doesn't make the umpire any less of a jerk for doing it.

[wli]

5. he should have started speaking in Arabic

[expatriot]

7. If he knew Arabic and was speaking to another Arabic

speaker and not to anyone who didn't speak Arabic that'd be fine.

[expatriot]

6. baseball experts - help us out - is there such a thing as

"illegal instructions?" It seems to me that if a coach was telling his players to do something that was against the rules of the game, the umpire(s) would catch it when the actual illegal action occurred.

This is obviously motivated by disgruntled english-only anglos.

I work at bilingual workplace but am not bilingual. It is a call center here in Yuma, Ariz where the general manager, half the supervisors and about a third of the TSR's are bilingual... the remainder being monolingual anglos like me. it really pisses me off when monolingual english speakers get upset and defensive when spanish is spoken around them instead of english. like today, i was in an insurance class (being trained to be a licensed agent) and it was during break and one of the bilingual students was chatting with the manager in spanish and one of the anglo ladies got all huffy about how they should speak englsih when there are english speakers in the room. The bilingual students and the teacher fell silent.. i had to speak up... i said to the lady "they weren't speaking to you so what does it matter to you?"

i get really upset with the english-only crowd. Things change. We already ARE a bilingual society... our culture, society, government, etc. is a reflection of the people it currently governs, includes, etc. the Constitution can be translated into Spanish just as easily as the Bible can be translated from Hebrew into Greek into English. Instead of saying "you came to MY country you should speak MY language... I realize that I have to get off my ass and learn Spanish (especially now that it looks like we are going to be lifers in AZ).

[me b zola]

8. I suffered a minor head explosion over this today

This is nothing more than the xenophobia that is gripping the country and speading like a virus.

The part that made me rant at the tv (and my dear hubbie) was that this bullshit rw political stance was directed at children.


IT'S BASEBALL----THEY COMUNICATE WITH SECRET SIGNS!!!!!!!

Two fingers drawn across the chest followed by scratching your nutsack could indicate a specific sign one day, then the next game it would be changed. :wtf: So does the racist ump argue that all of the team's secret signs should be shared before the game???? Of course not!!!!

JUST THE PLAYS COMUNICATED IN SPANISH!!!!!!!


I'm just sick of these bastards idiologies entering every aspect of our lives---particuarly our children's lives!!!!!!!!!


:rant:

[Hello_Kitty]

12. And for gawd's sake it's LITTLE LEAGUE!

Not the Major Leagues. These are kids having fun, people. What kind of sick, twisted adults take this shit so seriously that they will resort to having autistic kids beamed with balls and refuse to let other kids speak their native language? Aren't organized sports supposed to build character? If that's the kind they build I'm glad I'm not athletic. :grr:

[Nailzberg]

9. Let's get rid of the base coaches, too.

I mean, if sending in instructions to the players is all of a sudden illegal, you're gonna have to get rid of them, too.

[wake.up.america]

10. Yo no puedo comprenderlo.

[EFerrari]

11. If they tried this in MLB, they would pretty much have to shut up

the whole shop.

How incredibly stupid.