Upper School World Languages Teacher Kelly Weidenmiller used connections and culture to take her Spanish 400 students well beyond the walls of her classroom with a fun, innovative opportunity. “We end the year talking about sports and athletes in the Spanish-speaking world,” Weidenmiller explains. “The final part of the unit is a focus on Spanish-speakers in the Major League Baseball system, most notably featuring the film Sugar that highlights the story of a (fictional) Dominican baseball player who starts in a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic.” All MLB teams have their own academy there, and the main character, like many actual baseball players, makes his way to the minor leagues in the United States. The film highlights the challenges of that transition and how difficult it is to truly be successful in professional sports.
Melanie Duffy, Dean of Students for the Class of 2027, connected Weidenmiller with her husband, Ryan, who works for the St. Louis Cardinals. Ryan recently started working with the Spanish-speaking players in their system, even traveling to the Cardinals’ academy in the DR this year. “First, Ryan provided us with Spanish vocabulary that is specifically used in the DR by baseball players,” said Weidenmiller. “Next, I had my students write questions for Spanish-speaking players who have come up through the Cardinals’ system. I had three juniors (one who plays baseball for MICDS, two who are Cardinals fans) make a video, all in Spanish, giving a tour of our new baseball facility, and then asking a list of questions for them to answer.
Check out this video featuring Kiefer Winegrad ’27, Nikhil Maniar ’27, and Paolo Giaimo-Ochoa ’28:
Weidenmiller was thrilled to receive answers back from Jeremy Rivas, a Venezuelan player on the Cardinals’ AA team in Springfield. The player came up through the same academy system portrayed in the film, signing at age 16. He took the time to record his own videos for the class, answering in Spanish, of course. Our students also heard from Miguel Ugueto, a Venezuelan right-fielder with the Springfield Cardinals.
Click here to see one of the videos from Rivas.
Once the players’ videos were in, Weidenmiller created a worksheet for her students to fill out as they watched, ensuring they were correctly understanding the answers. They learned what the players feel is the most difficult part of playing professional baseball and what is their favorite part. They also learned about their role models (Rivas’ role model is New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, who is from Puerto Rico). Finally, the students were asked to write a reflection on the exercise. What did they learn? What interested and surprised them? Weidenmiller learned later from Ryan Duffy that the players were thrilled to make these videos and answer questions for our students. “Our students were blown away that we actually got responses from real professional baseball players!” reports Weidenmiller. It’s safe to say that Jeremy Rivas and Miguel Ugueto now have fans for life in St. Louis.
(Breaking news: both players were with the AA Springfield Cardinals when they recorded their videos last week, and on Monday, Jeremy Rivas was promoted to the AAA Memphis Redbirds! Congratulations, Jeremy!)
“This is an incredible collaboration and honestly Spanish teacher gold,” exclaimed Weidenmiller. “Talk about making a lesson come alive!”