Who’s the Man? Sammy Sosa, Latinos, and Televisual Redefinitions of the “American” Pastime

Abstract

Latino and Latin American baseball players have expanded the boundaries of the “American pastime,” asserting their ethnic and national identities even while being accepted as representatives of the sport most closely aligned with a white United States identity. This redefinition is achieved in part via cable and satellite technologies that carry images of Latinos to homes throughout the United States at a time when the Latino population is growing and becoming more dispersed, raising the possibility that baseball will lessen racism and xenophobia. However, media coverage is at times nostalgic for a more bounded sense of home and nation and often emphasizes players’ individual mobility, erasing the economic and political conditions that have brought Latin American players to the United States. The author shows how these tensions play out in Chicago superstation WGN’s coverage of Cubs star Sammy Sosa, who has emerged as a national hero in both the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

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