I’m watching the Dodgers go down, and out … on ESPN’s international network. Which is being voiced-over by a Cantonese-speaking announcer.

It led to this amusing bit, a moment ago.

The guy was talking about Eva Longoria.

At first I thought maybe the “Desperate Housewives” star was in the ballpark. I looked up. I saw Pat Sajak. But no shots of Eva Longoria.

He mentioned Eva Longoria again. And again.

And I’m thinking, “is she big here because the NBA is fairly popular, and she’s married to Tony Parker, who often plays against Yao Ming?” And I’m trying to work out how that might be.

Then I finally realized: He was talking about Evan Longoria, the Tampa Bay Rays rookie. It was just that he was pronouncing his name, EEE-van Longoria, and I heard the long E more clearly than I did the N at the end.

Of course, the ballplayer pronounces it EH-van Longoria. But that got lost in translation. It was just silly.

Anyway, Cantonese voiceovers don’t really much matter, when it’s baseball, because anyone familiar with the game knows what he or she is looking at. You don’t need Joe Buck and Tim McCarver (especially McCarver) yammering at you to know what’s going on.

Interesting, though, that a few English-language baseballisms have gone directly into Cantonese and represent little nuggets of intelligibility in an otherwise opaque stream of conversation.

Among those I’ve heard:

“Safe!”

“Pick off!”

“Foul ball!”

And, just now, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

This is a little slice of my life here. Living in a city where nothing anyone says, around me, is intelligible … until they stray into a bit of rusty English because the Westerner is standing there, asking them for something. Some of the Chinese here speak English fairly well. In theory, they all learn it in school, through fifth grade, or something like that. But they use it so rarely that it fades away. Rather like the German I learned, a long time ago.

Anyway, I kind of like this Cantonese-speaking baseball guy. Well, he drones, actually … he sounds bored, frankly. But he’s not shouting at me. He’s not trying to keep me from wandering off to some other station.

And, now and again, he comes up with news about Hollywood stars.