Manny, Papi, Pedro & Franklin

The lilting guitar and soothing voice of bachata singer Zacarias Ferreira fill the record store Franklin's CD as Alexandra Lora prepares to run an important errand: pick up some recent reggaeton mixes and a personal autograph from Manny Ramirez.

``Manny is my husband!" the 37-year-old Jamaica Plain woman declares with the gusto of a 12-year-old girl. The Red Sox outfielder stops by the small store every now and then to browse the latest Latin music titles. Lora, knowing this, asks the store manager to get Manny's John Hancock the next time he drops in.

``I love the way he looks now with the dreadlocks," Lora gushes, before spending $44 on three CDs.

If Lora had been there two days before, she could have met Pedro Martinez, who visited the Jamaica Plain store, an old haunt of his, to buy $150 worth of salsa, merengue, and bachata CDs and DVDs. The former Sox pitcher , who's now with the Mets, was in town for a series at Fenway Park.

It's not just local Latin music lovers who come here to get their hands on boleros, merengue, and salsa compilations. Franklin's CD is also the favorite record shop of the Red Sox' Dominican players -- and sometimes their opponents -- who swing by on their off time from Fenway to buy a disc or pose for a photograph with owner Franklin Cabral .

``It's a tradition," Cabral says of the impromptu Polaroid shoots with the players. ``They used to come more, but now that they're so famous it's less."

The ballplayers, like their fans, come to Franklin's looking for a little bit of home -- mainly the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico -- and they find that cultural connection through la musica.

Ramirez comes here for '80s salsa CDs by Frankie Ruiz . David ``Big Papi" Ortiz visits at least once a month for reggaeton artists such as Daddy Yankee and Don Omar . Sox shortstop Alex Gonzalez has been spotted here too. Even members of opposing teams -- such as Luis Castillo of the Florida Marlins and New York Yankees first base coach Tony Peña -- travel to the Centre Street store when they're in Boston playing or visiting. Their photographs frame the top of display cases that house a portion of Cabral's 50,000-CD inventory.

When the players drop by, Cabral and his manager, Ernesto Peña, give them the Oprah/Jennifer Lopez treatment.

``We close the doors so that the fans don't bother them," says Cabral, 52. ``The fans go crazy when they spot them here."

Do the employees get star-struck?

``Nah, we're used to it," he says. ``They feel comfortable here. All the Dominican players come here."

The store was born out of a need: music imported from home.

Cabral, born in the Dominican Republic , came in 1979 to Boston, where his brother was living. Both men had come to the Bay State to help support their family back home. Cabral, who prefers to speak in his native Spanish, as do many of his customers, took jobs cleaning offices in downtown Boston. Over the years, as he built a life here and befriended other Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in Jamaica Plain, he kept hearing a common complaint from them.

``Where can we find Spanish CDs?" Cabral recalls them asking.

At the time, the music business was booming as people began replacing vinyl and cassettes with CDs. When an uncle suggested that Cabral might make money by selling Latin CDs, Cabral was hooked. With $1,000, he began trekking to New York City in his Ford van on weekends to buy salsa and merengue CDs, by such singers as Alex Bueno and Sergio Vargas , from distributor s in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Back in Boston, he drove around JP, Roxbury, and Dorchester to peddle the CDs at bodegas, auto repair shops, and grocery marts. He cultivated a loyal clientele and soon found himself delivering CDs to people's homes as well as to Spanish-language DJs at local nightclubs.

``People called me `Franklin de los CDs,' " he recalls.

In 1992 he decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge. A space was available at 314 Centre St. , and he opened Franklin's CD there with 150 discs.

The store, with its green and white striped awning, harks back to the pre-iPod era, when people browsed the racks at music stores instead of scrolling up and down on their laptops. Cabral knows many of his customers by first name and banters with them in Spanish about the latest Red Sox game.

While Cabral's customers may not find their musical tastes on local FM radio or on display at Barnes & Noble , they do find them here or on smaller AM stations, where DJs buy blocks of time to play their preferred playlists, which could include the latest reggaeton from Ivy Queen or balada by Mexican singer Ana Gabriel.

Still, like other independent music stores, Cabral's business is an endangered species, one that has been affected by Internet downloading. He says business has dropped off 40 percent in the past three years. To compensate, he has branched out by selling luggage, speakers, and money orders to Latin America.

As much as it is a neighborhood music store, Franklin's CD is also a shrine to local Latino baseball players.

Cabral credits Ramirez with getting the word out through the Dominican grapevine. Ramirez told him that when he was with the Cleveland Indians, he heard about the store from Tony Peña, a former Sox player. Word spread to other players. Ortiz started dropping by. Cabral's collection of photos of ballplayers began to fill the walls.

Ortiz recently signed a baseball and a glossy photograph for local DJ ``La Fraga" Alex Baez, 26, who was in Cabral's store the other day watching the Yankees game on a small TV monitor.

``This is the must-go-to place for the players," says Baez, proudly holding Ortiz's photo and ball. ``He's our friend."

Behind him on a rear wall is a prominently displayed and framed Sox jersey from 2001 with signatures from nine of the team's Latino players, including Pedro, Manny, and Rich ``El Guapo" Garces . The shirt's dedication reads, ``Para Franklin, con mucho cariño de sus amigos Latinos ."

When Cabral shows that off to a visitor -- along with the two tickets he says Martinez gave him for the June 28 Sox-Mets game -- he can't help but smile the way he does in his store photos.

``I feel happy that people know they can come here and find their music," he says. ``I feel proud because I give the Latino community the music they want."

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.