The first thing you need to know about being an interpreter for an Asian baseball player in the U.S. is that “speaking is only about 10 percent of the job,” said Ippei Mizuhara, who doubles as Angels star Shohei Ohtani’s catch partner and spends time analyzing baseball data and monitoring Ohtani’s recovery, among a myriad of other duties.

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The second thing you need to know about interpreters is, if you do this job long enough, you’ll probably end up in a hospital at some point.

It could be pacing outside the delivery room, like Tim Lin, the interpreter for Taiwanese former pitcher Wei-Yin Chen,  who drove the Chens to the hospital for the birth of their first son, Karsen, in November 2012.  You could find yourself rushing like Shingo Horie, who accompanied Masahiro Tanaka’s wife, Mai Satoda, to her pregnancy check-up appointments — then raced with Tanaka to get a flight from Tampa to New York when Satoda went into labor during the Yankees’ 2016 spring training.

Scarier still, you could be in the back of an ambulance like Scott Akasaki, who sprinted out from the Dodgers’ food room (interpreters weren’t allowed in the dugout until 2013) after watching pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii take a line drive off his head in September 2002. Ishii fractured his skull and was carried off the field in a stretcher, but was alert enough for Akasaki to explain what was going on en route to surgery. (Ishii made a full recovery.)

“It’s an underappreciated role,” said Akasaki, who also served as Hideo Nomo’s interpreter as part of what was then the Dodgers’ Asian Operations department before transitioning into team travel in 2005. “People will joke and say, ‘If we didn’t have guys like Ippei we don’t know where we’d be,’ but it really is true. These guys are lifelines. When you come over, you can’t order a cheeseburger or ask for extra towels or say you’re out of shampoo. It’s a lot more than just balls and strikes.”

As baseball strives to become more of a global game, the role of an interpreter has evolved. Once barred from the pitching mound and dugout, they are now an integral part of daily life for some of the game’s biggest stars.

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“Everyone thinks the (interpreter) job is easy: you just speak two languages. But the most important thing is to be the bridge, a mentor and a friend for them,” said Lin, who now works for an agency. “It’s much harder for Asian players than people think. Sometimes the most pressure is not on the field, it’s off the field.”

Since 2016, teams have been required to have at least two full-time Spanish language interpreters. They are paid by the team, typically don’t have a prior personal relationship with the players they work with, and have a fairly steady source of employment. Interpreters for Asian players, while also employed by specific teams, often have their job security linked to a single player and his contract. (During last winter’s lockout, interpreters had to temporarily resign from their jobs in order to continue communication with players.) Increasingly, interpreters are hand-selected by the player coming to the United States, and it’s easy to see why: There’s already a relationship and built-in trust, which is paramount to a job with no parameters and seemingly endless hours.

“It’s such a big part (of the job),” Mizuhara said of the trust factor. ‘We are together pretty much every day, longer than I’m with my wife, so it’s going to be tough if you don’t get along on a personal level.”

Ohtani picked Mizuhara, who was the interpreter for English players on the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. San Diego infielder Ha-Seong Kim, who was signed out of South Korea, brought interpreter Leo Bae with him. (Both are extremely popular fixtures on the Padres. In last year’s playoffs, Bae would dance in the clubhouse during celebrations.)

Boston outfielder Masataka Yoshida, who signed a five-year, $90 million deal with the Red Sox this winter, asked Keiichiro Wakabayashi, the Japanese interpreter for English players for the Orix Buffaloes, to come with him. And Oakland pitcher Shintaro Fujinami brought Issei Kamada, who worked with him for five years in Japan as a trainer when he was a prospect.

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Kamada kept in touch with Fujinami when he went on to play for the Hanshin Tigers. When he told his wife, Rie, that Fujinami was about to post to play in the United States, she asked if Fujinami would get to bring someone. Probably, Kamada said. Well, why don’t you ask him if you can go?, Rie urged, having heard Kamada talk about Fujinami’s career for the past decade.

That’s how Kamada found himself in Oakland, a transition that hasn’t been entirely seamless. He was referred to in the introductory press conference as Yamada, and received a good amount of teasing by friends in Japan about it.

“I put on Instagram, I guess I’m Yamada in the United States,” he said, laughing. “I’m fine with it. Fuji has made a great adjustment, which is the most important. He’s got a great attitude toward new things.”

Kamada and Wakabayashi, who goes by “K” in the Red Sox clubhouse, know each other a little bit and keep in touch during the season. Wakabayashi also met Horie — who was asked to do media relations for Team Japan — in Miami at this year’s World Baseball Classic and picked the veteran’s brain: What should he do in the clubhouse? How could he best communicate with the team and support Yoshida off the field? 

“You don’t do this job one certain way and everything works,” said Horie, who is currently the interpreter for Padres pitcher Yu Darvish. “You need to understand the person, and then you go about doing it.”

Wakabayshi, who was Googling every city rumored to have interest in Yoshida this winter, said he was already familiar with the Red Sox as one of MLB’s most famous franchises. The hardest part for him has been the actual translation. His goal is to be like Horie, who has mastered the intricacies of the English language, the slang, the jokes, the subtexts.

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“I need to learn more baseball terminology; the (American) slang,” said Wakabayashi, who is concurrently taking English classes through the Red Sox. “For example, a fastball, they say heater. Small things that are more common here than in Japan.”

An interpreter’s job isn’t just straight translation. They have to explain tones, cultural differences and unique customs in the right context. Some things are straightforward: In Taiwan, Lin said it’s not uncommon for players to board the bus and go park to park in their uniforms. In MLB, players arrive in street clothes. Others require more nuance, such as explaining to Yoshida that he’s in charge of carrying the Red Sox beer cooler on airplanes. A Japanese star, Yoshida is still one of the newer players when it comes to major-league service time.

“It’s two very different cultures,” Wakabayashi said. “Me and him are working on accents and everything U.S. We do everything we can to make sure we understand U.S. culture. You don’t want to say anything bad or wrong.”

Added Kamada: “I don’t want (Fuji) to look like a dick. He’s never like, ‘Why are they doing this to me?’ or anything. But sometimes because of the cultural or language difference, what we do in Japan doesn’t fit here. So I try to explain that to him so he can make an easier transition.”

Roughly a dozen Asian players in MLB require an interpreter, a very small group. All of the Japanese interpreters know – or know of – each other. And everyone interviewed for this story agreed on one thing: Mizuhara is in his own stratosphere, someone giving a face to a profession of relative anonymity.

When asked about his cult hero status, Mizuhara demurred.

“I’m not sure if that’s deserved,” he said.

The 38-year-old said he got into being an interpreter because he loved baseball – watching it and playing it – and wanted to find a way to stay on the field. Mizuhara is, by all accounts but his own, a bonafide celebrity in Japan.

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“Ippei is pretty famous over there,” Horie said.

“Yes, he definitely is,” added Akasaki.

“I saw his Instagram before the WBC,” said Kamada, who has met Mizuhara just once. “He was at like 30,000 followers, he had like three pictures. After the WBC he had like 300,000 or something. He is definitely famous.”

Mizuhara, who served as Team Japan’s interpreter and posted pictures from team dinners and other events, said the WBC did help his social status. As for his fame, he laughs.

“It’s probably because Shohei is so famous,” he said, “and I’m always right behind him in photos.”

Even in the U.S., Mizuhara gets recognized frequently and has been asked to sign autographs. (His wife found his signed baseballs for sale on Japanese eBay.)  Other interpreters, like Pittsburgh’s Daniel Park, only get asked when it’s a case of mistaken identity.

“I’ll get off the bus and fans will yell, ‘Bae! Bae!’ at me,” Park said, referring to Ji Hwan Bae, one of two South Korean Pirates he interprets for.  “I have to say, I’m not a player, this (autograph) isn’t worth anything.”

The Pirates’ other South Korean player, Ji-Man Choi, is the reason Park is in Pittsburgh, as Choi asked him to come along when he was traded from Tampa Bay. Park stumbled into interpreter life. He didn’t grow up liking baseball, but went to college in Tampa and made some extra money senior year interpreting Korean for a Phillies coach in nearby Clearwater. He applied for the Rays job working with Choi after that, and spent much of his first year getting to know Choi at restaurants or at Choi’s apartment, where he’d cook South Korean food.

Horie also fell into the job. He was in the U.S. as part of the Japanese baseball media. He applied for the Yankees’ Tanaka job on a whim and got it. When Tanaka’s contract was up, Horie was set to go back home. Then the Padres called and asked if he was interested in being Darvish’s guy.

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“My first question was, Does he even need an interpreter?,” Horie said of Darvish, an 11-year veteran who didn’t use an interpreter in his later seasons with the Chicago Cubs. “He speaks English. I’m more of a safeguard.”

So, if Mizuhara is right and speaking is only 10 percent of what interpreters do, what do they do the rest of the time? Anything and everything.

Akasaki remembers, in the pre-analytics days, getting an Excel or Word document from the scouting department on opposing hitters. It was his job to decipher it and then get the message to Nomo or Ishii about how to get Barry Bonds out. Now with heat maps and video advances, it’s much easier to point to zones and bridge the language barrier.

Still, interpreters do double as data analysts, mentors and coaches. They also help players get meals, get to the stadium on time, and often provide support for partners and children.

Park secured Pittsburgh apartments for Bae and Choi this offseason. Lin, who helped throw a baby shower, would stand in the room while Chen got a massage on his start days because the team’s massage therapist didn’t speak Mandarin. Kamada lived with Fujinami and the massage therapist he brought with him this spring. During the season, their apartments are within walking distance of each other. The trio share at least one meal daily and Kamada, who doubles as Fujinami’s trainer, also keeps track of his between-start schedule and conditioning.

Mizuhara also trains with Ohtani. He’s caught his bullpens at times, and served as Ohtani’s catcher in the Home Run Derby. He said part of his job is helping Ohtani minimize distractions and balance his offseason schedule of marketing and endorsements.

“I’m with him all offseason too,” Mizuhara said. “I’m with him 365 days of the year, which I think is different than the other interpreters.” Mizuhara and Ohtani even worked out together on Christmas.

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While the work schedule isn’t that demanding for other interpreters, it is still a significant enough commitment that lack of personal time is the clear number-one drawback.

“You always have to stick with the players,” Park said.  “Now, with two players, I have to be there whenever they’re going to need me, and I don’t know when they’re going to need me.”

There’s also the occasional sticky situation between players and the team, with interpreters — who are hired by the team, but only have a job because of the player — often having to straddle the line.

“Sometimes being the middleman and being caught in (between) two different opinions is tough,” Horie said. “That’s part of the job, but some of the things we go through that I don’t know if people notice is that you’re always in the middle. But it’s a great job. You get to really understand what professional baseball players go through and I think that’s a privilege.”

Some interpreters love the job so much they want to stay forever. Others, like Akasaki and Lin, did it for a few years and transitioned elsewhere in the game, where there was more of a work-life balance.

“Wei-Yin understood, he came to my wedding,” Lin said of his decision to leave when he got engaged. “Of course, when he showed up it was like a Wei-Yin Chen concert, not Tim Lin’s wedding, everyone wanted to take a picture with him and I was on the other side with my wife.”

Lin laughs.

“No, I was fortunate they were able to come. I loved being an interpreter, it was a very unique experience. I delivered a baby before I got married.”

(Top image: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Photo: Maddie Malhotra / Boston Red Sox via Getty Images)