Most interpreters working for Japanese baseball teams are Japanese. Though there has been a need for translators in a variety of languages in recent years as the suketto (foreign "helpers") hired by Central and Pacific League teams have come from various countries, most of the men hired to change Nihongo to English, Spanish, Korean or Chinese, and vice-versa, have been Japanese.
Currently, one of the teams has a full-blooded American working as a tsuyaku. Devin Odus Elliott, a native of Arizona who could not speak or understand any Japanese five years ago, is responsible for verbal communications between manager Koji Yamamoto and his coaching staff and the foreign players on the Hiroshima Carp.
The 29-year-old Elliott began working for the Carp five years ago, coming to Hiroshima on an internship program initiated by the team a few years prior to that. Whenever he had a break from his office duties in the Carp's Business Planning and International Operations departments, he pulled out his textbook and studied the local language. Now, he's good enough to serve as an interpreter and can accompany pitching coach Manabu Kitabeppu to the mound in a crucial situation to speak with American hurlers Eric Ludwick, Tim Young or Erik Schullstrom, or do a live, nationwide post-game TV "hero interview" with infielders Luis Lopez or Eddy Diaz.