This essay examines place in terms of issues of local and global marketing in Major League Baseball (MLB) using the case study of the career of Dominican-born superstar Manny Ramírez. Given its current state of decline in popularity, steroid scandals, and criticisms of lack of representation of domestic, urban men of color among its players, MLB attempts to negotiate U.S. patriotism and international appeal through transnationalism, and global labor and marketing initiatives.The career and construction of Manny Ramírez highlight internal contradictions in this marketing strategy as well as the extent to which readings of Ramírez_s deviant behavior parallel as well as differ from those of other athletes of color in the National Basketball Association and National Football League, favoring an immigrant as opposed to a minority identity.
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