Baseball at six in the morning in San Pedro de Macorís
A training session and a street game in the Dominican Republic, with preferir, encantar and odiar plus an infinitive. Spanish A2.
El play de San Pedro de Macorís a las seis de la mañana
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An early training session on a baseball field in San Pedro de Macorís, in the Dominican Republic, where the field is called el play. The text describes the city's reputation for producing shortstops, how the academies and the winter league work, and what vitilla is: the street game played by hitting the cap of a large water bottle. The preference verbs appear with infinitives, alongside gerund phrases such as sigue lanzando. The characters are invented.
El béisbol es el deporte más popular del país. Después de Estados Unidos, ningún país pone tantos jugadores en las Grandes Ligas, y San Pedro de Macorís tiene fama de dar campocortos, los jugadores que cubren el espacio entre la segunda y la tercera base.
Elvin tiene quince años y lleva tres años entrenando aquí. Prefiere entrenar temprano, porque a mediodía el sol quema. Primero corre, después batea y al final recoge las pelotas con los demás.
Su entrenador se llama Ramón. Dice que a Elvin le encanta batear, pero que odia correr en el calor, así que lo pone a correr cuando todavía hay sombra.
Muchos equipos de las Grandes Ligas tienen academias en el país. Allí los jóvenes que ya tienen contrato entrenan, estudian y comen en el mismo lugar. Antes de eso, muchos niños entrenan en programas del barrio y pocos llegan a firmar un contrato.
La liga de invierno juega de octubre a enero, cuando en Estados Unidos ya se acaba la temporada. En esos meses algunos jugadores conocidos vuelven a jugar en casa, y en los partidos importantes el estadio se llena y la gente sigue cantando después del último out.
En la calle no hace falta un play. Los niños juegan vitilla: batean con un palo de escoba la tapa de un botellón de agua. A los pequeños les encanta jugar vitilla: la tapa vuela torcida y casi nunca llega donde uno espera.
A las ocho, Elvin sigue lanzando desde el montículo. Ramón cuenta los lanzamientos en voz alta y no lo deja pasar de veinte.
¿Qué deporte se juega en las calles de tu ciudad? ¿Prefieres entrenar por la mañana o por la tarde? ¿Qué parte de un entrenamiento te gusta y cuál odias?
About this article
What you'll learn
Preference verbs with the infinitive (prefiere entrenar, le encanta batear, odia correr, les encanta jugar), volver a plus infinitive, and the superlative with de.
An early training session on a baseball field in San Pedro de Macorís, in the Dominican Republic, where the field is called el play. The text describes the city's reputation for producing shortstops, how the academies and the winter league work, and what vitilla is: the street game played by hitting the cap of a large water bottle. The preference verbs appear with infinitives, alongside gerund phrases such as sigue lanzando. The characters are invented.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
no aprieta el calor
newthe heat is not yet fierce
Apretar means to squeeze or press, and with weather it means to get intense: aprieta el calor, aprieta el frío. The heat is the subject, so the verb is in the third person.
Weather is the first small talk anywhere, and this is how people say it got serious rather than just hot.
tiene fama de
newto be known for
Tener fama de is followed by an infinitive, a noun or an adjective: tiene fama de dar campocortos, tiene fama de caro. It says what people say about something, which is weaker and more honest than saying it yourself.
It lets you report a reputation without claiming it is true.
a mediodía
newat midday
A mediodía is used without an article, and al mediodía is just as correct; a las seis de la mañana always needs las. Mediodía is one word and means the middle of the day, not only twelve exactly; its opposite is medianoche.
Every plan you make in Spanish hangs on one of these time expressions.
después del último out
newthe last out
Baseball came into Spanish with its English words, and some of them are ordinary Spanish wherever the game is played: el out, el jonrón (home run), el ponche (strikeout), el cátcher. Note the contraction in después del, from de plus el.
In the Caribbean these words turn up in conversation, not only in sports reports.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
el play
el play
the ball field
In the Dominican Republic el play is the baseball field, borrowed from English but used as a normal masculine noun: el play, un play, los plays. In Spain the same place would be el campo.
A word you will not find in a general course, and the first one anyone in the neighbourhood will use.
batear
batea
to bat, to hit the ball
From el bate, the bat, which itself came from English. Batear is a regular -ar verb: bateo, bateas, batea. Do not confuse it with batir, to beat eggs or cream.
Sport verbs are how you follow a game with friends, and this pair of look-alikes is easy to mix up.
el campocorto
campocortos
the shortstop
A compound of campo and corto, built the way sacacorchos and paraguas are: two words welded into one. In the Caribbean you will also hear the English shortstop and torpedero for the same position.
It shows how Spanish makes new nouns, and compounds like it are everywhere in the kitchen and the toolbox.
la vitilla
vitilla
vitilla, the street game with a bottle cap
La vitilla is both the cap of a large water bottle and the Dominican street game played by hitting it with a broomstick. In American Spanish you play it with jugar and no article: juegan vitilla, like juegan béisbol; in Spain it would be jugar al béisbol.
It is a word with no translation, and knowing it tells a Dominican that you have actually been in the street.
el montículo
el montículo
the pitcher's mound
A montículo is any small mound of earth; in baseball it is the raised circle the pitcher throws from, and in the Caribbean people often call it la lomita, the little hill. The ending -culo here is a diminutive from Latin, as in artículo and músculo.
Small raised ground comes up in geography as well as in sport.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
a Elvin le encanta batear
a Elvin le encanta batear
Elvin loves batting
With encantar the person goes in a pronoun and the name is introduced by a: a Elvin le encanta. Both parts stay, the a Elvin and the le. Odiar in the same sentence works the other way round, with Elvin as an ordinary subject: odia correr. The infinitive after each of them is what they share.
Naming the person is where this pattern usually breaks: Elvin le encanta and a Elvin encanta are both wrong.
Prefiere entrenar: infinitive, not gerund
Prefiere entrenar temprano
He prefers to train early
After verbs of liking and preferring (gustar, encantar, preferir, odiar, detestar, interesar) Spanish uses the infinitive: prefiere entrenar, le encanta batear, odia correr, les encanta jugar. English says prefers training with -ing, and that pattern does not transfer. The Spanish gerund is correct after other verbs, and this text has three: lleva tres años entrenando, sigue cantando and sigue lanzando. Llevar, seguir, estar and continuar are among the verbs it belongs with.
Everything you say about training, food or free time runs through these verbs.
A los pequeños les encanta jugar
A los pequeños les encanta jugar vitilla
The little ones love playing
When the people are plural the pronoun is les: a los pequeños les encanta, a mis primos les encanta. The verb still stays singular, because its subject is the infinitive jugar and not the children.
Plural people with a singular verb is the exact spot where learners add an n that should not be there.
volver a jugar
vuelven a jugar en casa
to play again
Volver a plus an infinitive means to do something again: vuelven a jugar, vuelvo a leerlo, volvió a llamar. Spanish uses it very often where English just adds again, and volver keeps its o to ue change: vuelvo, vuelves, vuelve, volvemos.
Once you have it, you stop hanging otra vez on the end of every sentence.
el deporte más popular del país
el deporte más popular del país
the most popular sport in the country
The superlative is article plus más plus adjective, with the noun in between when it is needed, and the group it is compared with comes in with de: el más popular del país, la ciudad más grande del mundo. English says in the country, and de is where that gets translated wrongly.
You need it to say the best, the biggest and the oldest of anything.
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