Ortiz brings inspiration

For the second day at SJI, I'm blogging about a speaker who inspired me. Jesus Ortiz is a sports columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the first Hispanic president of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Ortiz spoke about issues facing minorities on the field and in the media, including the unfairness of quoting Latino ballplayers verbatim when they speak broken English, and the challenge of finding a mentor in a media industry that is short on diversity. On the issue of verbatim quotes for those not entirely comfortable in English, Ortiz led a discussion of a recent piece in the Houston Chronicle in which Astros outfielder Carlos Gomez sounded illiterate because he did not speak English--which is not his native tongue--perfectly. Ortiz, who previously worked at the Chronicle and knows Gomez, described him as “a very bright guy and a very proud guy.” But the verbatim quotes did not portray him that way. Though I cannot adequately explain why I appreciate this man in just 200 words, I hope my post explains why he encouraged me to be a better sportswriter, and I can’t thank him enough for the motivation.-- Chris Yangas