Baseball rising star Roberto Campos credited Taylor Swift’s music for helping him with the language barrier after moving to the United States.
The 21-year-old revealed that learning English was one of his struggles upon moving Stateside as a teenager.
However, Campos spoke with the Detroit Free Press on March 5 without an interpreter and thanked American pop music for his progress. In doing so, he name-dropped the 14-time Grammy winner.
‘Thank you, Taylor Swift,’ Campos said with a smile at the Detroit Tigers spring training in Lakeland, Florida.
Campos was 13 when he moved from Cuba to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional baseball player.
At 16, Campos signed a minor league contract with the Tigers that included a $2.85million bonus. At the time, it was the largest bonus the Tigers had awarded to an international free agent.
Baseball phenom Roberto Campos thanked Taylor Swift’s music for helping him learn English
The 21-year-old relied heavily on American pop music, movies, and TV to learn the language
Upon signing, Campos was assigned to play minor league ball for the Tigers’ High-A affiliate West Michigan Whitecaps in suburban Grand Rapids.
‘My Latino friends said, ‘Hey, bro, you need to learn English because it’s hard when somebody’s talking to you and you don’t understand nothing,’ Campos told the Detroit Free Press.
To learn the language, the outfielder said he watched action movies and comedies on Netflix with subtitles, set his phone to English, and watched videos to expand his vocabulary.
‘It’s awesome. Sometimes I am in my room, and I say, ‘Man, I did it. Because when I got here, I said, ‘I’m never gonna learn English because it’s so hard for me. But now, every time that I can answer a question, I feel great. Man, inside me, I feel like, yeah,’ Campos added.
The Tigers star also noted how his improved communication with coaches and teammates made things much easier and enjoyable.
Campos thanked the 14-time Grammy-winning artist in an interview with the Detroit Free Press
‘They treat me like I’m one of them,’ Campos said. ‘I feel good every day I come here.’
While Campos continues to put an effort on and off the field, manager AJ Hinch has taken notice of his progress.
‘It’s a good lesson for all of us on patience,’ Hinch, 50, told the Free Press. ‘The acclimation process is not just about learning about baseball. He’s had to learn about living in a different country, in a different language, and interacting with a lot of different people.’
Hinch added, ‘It only feels like it’s taken a long time because of our lack of patience as an industry, not anything that he has or hasn’t done.’
