Blue Jays rookie 3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is "defying sports marketing orthodoxy" with a new Canadian ad campaign from AmEx before he masters the English language, according to Morgan Campbell of the TORONTO STAR. The 20-year-old "grew up speaking Spanish in the Dominican Republic, and doesn’t use English in public." The new AmEx campaign "highlights trends long developing at the nexus of baseball, marketing and multiculturalism." In the first commercial with Guerrero, the "short conversations," along with MLB’s "evolving attitude toward Spanish, suggest contemporary stars from various backgrounds can bore big holes in previously solid language barriers." Players like Guerrero "recognize the importance of learning English as they adjust to Toronto, but the city is also picking up Spanish as it welcomes its new star." Guerrero: "I’m learning more words, trying to learn the basics well and (eventually) talk to the press in English." The team behind the AmEx ad "thought it was more important to portray Guerrero at his most relaxed, which meant letting him speak Spanish on camera" (TORONTO STAR, 8/26).
THE ADVENTURES OF PETE: YAHOO SPORTS' Matt Ehalt noted Mets rookie 1B Pete Alonso is "one of the most active participants in MLB’s player social program and a frequent user of the Greenfly, a content distribution platform used by those in the program." Alonso "estimated he uses the program several times per week, sending the content to his family and also using it for his social media pages" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 8/23).
