La Vida Voices: Los Angeles Times columnist Dylan Hernandez
Similar to most baseball fans in his native Los Angeles, Dylan Hernandez has vivid memories of Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in the 1988 World Series.
Actually, that monumental home run in Dodgers history is Hernandez’s first baseball memory.
“My usually calm father went nuts, so it made me think the game was important,” said Hernandez, the only Latino sports columnist at a major American newspaper. “I followed baseball very closely for the next two or three seasons. Then I stopped watching.”
He made up for lost time eventually to become one of the foremost authorities on the Dodgers over the last decade.
Twenty years after Gibson stunned the A’s, Hernandez was on the Dodgers beat for the Los Angeles Times as America’s only tri-lingual baseball writer fluent in Spanish, Japanese and English.
The Pasadena, Calif., native is the son of a Japanese mother and El Salvadoran father. Hernandez learned Japanese and Spanish as a child at a time when pitcher Hideo Nomo began a surge of Japanese ballplayers transitioning to Major League Baseball.
Baseball might very well be Hernandez’s third favorite sport behind boxing and soccer, but you couldn’t tell by his thorough coverage. He was promoted to columnist in 2016, thriving in a role that brings out his salty, snarky personality.
Only a small percentage of baseball beat writers at mainstream outlets are capable of conducting interviews in Spanish in the majors, where nearly 30 percent of the players are from Latin America. In that group, Hernandez has been one of the best for more than a decade.
More impressively, he stands alone among mainstream sports journalists in America who can walk into the Angels’ clubhouse and interview Mike Trout, Shohei Otani and Albert Pujols in their native languages without missing context or a word.
He took time out to answer a few questions about his career for La Vida Baseball.
Jose de Jesus Ortiz: How have your Japanese-Salvadoran roots helped you become a successful baseball writer?
Dylan Hernandez: Being able to speak to players in their native languages has obviously helped. Understanding their cultures has, too.
JJO: What has been the biggest adjustment after leaving the baseball beat to become a columnist?
DH: I can no longer just show up at the park and write what happens. I have to go to work with an idea of what I’m going to write and plan how I’m going to report that out in a relatively short period of time.
JJO: What was the biggest obstacle you faced growing up in a bicultural family in Southern California?
DH: What’s funny is that I never felt like I was the weird one. I always thought everyone else was weird. I would say that’s a credit to my parents, who knew who they were and had very clear ideas on how they wanted to live. I guess the one thing I missed out on was having extended family. Most of my family was still back in El Salvador or Japan.
JJO: How were you such a successful baseball writer despite a limited knowledge of baseball when you got into the business?
DH: When you cover sports, what you’re really covering is people. Sometimes knowing too much about a sport can get in the way of that.
JJO: What advice would you give young Latino writers who hope to become baseball writers one day?
DH: Read a lot. Write a lot. And when you land a job, learn from your more experienced colleagues. Guys like (columnist) Bill Plaschke, (former columnist) T.J. Simers and (national baseball columnist) Bill Shaikin have been tremendous resources for me.
JJO: You’re known as a good teammate with a good ear. What’s the key to developing strong working bonds with colleagues in such a competitive industry?
DH: The key is for your colleagues to know they can count on you to do your part of the job. That trust is really important when you’re at a big event as part of a five-, six-, or seven-person coverage team. I also like to think I lighten the mood when I’m around. I think it’s important to have fun on the job. Wasn’t that why we chose this profession in the first place?
JJO: You were an accomplished youth soccer player who started covering Major League Soccer early in your career. What is your favorite sport to cover, soccer, boxing or baseball?
DH: You might be overselling my ability as a soccer player a little. But, yes, I like soccer and I like covering it. I like to think I have a decent feel for the game. My favorite sport to cover, though, is boxing. The fighters are generally very open. The sport is very accessible from an emotional standpoint. And there’s nothing quite like atmosphere of a big fight.
JJO: Thanks for sharing your story and passion with us. Be sure to follow Dylan on Twitter.
Featured Image: Jose de Jesus Ortiz