Baseball is Castillo’s first language

While speaking English, Coppell senior catcher Bradley Castillo is as quiet as they come. He smiles a faint smile as his teammates congratulate him on a run at a playoff game, and only a brief, comparatively restrained roar as the Cowboys advance to the fourth round against Keller. 

Yet a jangly South American tune, Pa’ Que Retozen, Castillo’s walk-up music, is one of several hints of humor in his personality. The rest are hidden behind his linguistic gap with the Coppell baseball team – his Spanish to their English.

Castillo began to play baseball at age 3, catcher at age 6 and moved from Venezuela to Coppell two years ago to play baseball, joining the Cowboys as a junior.

“The first time I met Bradley, he was a small fish in a big sea,” Coppell coach Ryan Howard said. “Big eyes, he was brand new to Coppell. He was very surprised about the surroundings and trying to find his way to fit in.”

Speaking only the necessary baseball terms to play as catcher and communicate with the Cowboy pitchers, Castillo’s transition to Coppell was difficult off-the-field at the start. But on the field was a different story. Howard started Castillo as catcher in his first year with the team.

“We knew we needed him immediately,” Howard said. “When he came in and jumped in behind the plate, everybody saw how talented he was, how hard he works and how much he wanted to be part of our community. Bradley’s not going to be an outgoing guy off the field but he’s got fire when he plays.”

While bridging the language gap is necessary off the field, baseball was a universal language with no translations necessary for Castillo. For everything else, Howard, after seeing Castillo play, pulled Coppell senior outfielder Alejandro Lopez out of class to ask him to act as translator, as he also speaks Spanish. Being able to talk to Castillo in his native tongue, where his personality is more easily visible, Lopez sees a different side of the catcher.

“While he’s more quiet in English, in Spanish he’s funny; he likes to try to make jokes,” Lopez said. “But he’s mostly focused on baseball. He’s pretty shy when it comes to English, but in Spanish, he’s a lot more outgoing. ”

While his English is mostly yeses, nos and thank yous currently, Castillo is trying to speak more as he understands it. He’ll need it to pursue his future plans of playing in American college and beyond.

“I want to play in college, see what happens and what opportunities come and then hopefully go from there in my career,” Castillo said.

Part of his quietness is because of the language barrier. But even with Lopez, Castillo is one of the more reserved players on the team. He even speaks quietly, preferring to speak with his hand signals at the plate instead of his voice. He considers his biggest influence to be New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter, for his preaching about respect and discipline in baseball; both qualities which Castillo represents on the field.

Having lived in America for two years, Castillo no longer wears his Venezuelan flag sleeve as he plays. It was when the Cowboys defeated Prosper at the Coppell ISD Baseball/Softball Complex in the third round of the playoffs last year, and the team chanted “send them home,” that he realized he felt that Coppell was home after all.

“I’m starting to feel comfortable here,” Castillo said. “There’s a lot more opportunity over here in baseball, so I’m trying to take advantage of that. Speaking only Spanish was a big problem at first but it’s not as much now. I can understand a little more and get what people are saying. I feel safe here and I’m getting more comfortable as I move in.”

Follow Anjali (@anjalikrishna_) and @SidekickSports on Twitter.