Baseball as Theatre

Not being a sports fan I watch a baseball game as if it were a stage play. Like any good theatre production, acting and staging are critical to my enjoyment. Admittedly a baseball game is longish—three hours to a play’s usual two and a half—and the chit chat in the air can be tiresome. Last game, every time De Jesus came to bat the woman behind me recounted how her niece married a De Jesus and was on her third pregnancy.  This commentary is not forthcoming at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. But many of the elements of drama I do appreciate play out on the baseball field.

Spring Training in Surprise, Arizona is great theatre. It heightens the action when you know that the youngsters who rotate through the base and field positions are under extreme pressure. They have a few innings to put on their best show.  They perform knowing that the engine is running on the bus back to small town, USA or third world country, Planet Earth. That’s motivation.

Watching a pitcher stretch his arms above his head, cradle the ball in his mitt to hide his true intent, pirouette his arm and missile the ball across the plate—pure ballet. Watching the little guy who compensates by rotating his leg in his hip socket to raise it impossibly high and thump it down in a time release ball action of precision and power—thrilling.

In today’s theatre, sometimes a setting or a prop operates like a character. In baseball, the ball itself can steal the show. Our eyes fixate on the perfect arc of the ball zooming into outfield, scaling the fence and plopping into the bare hand of a dumb-lucky fan.

When the curtain came down the score was LA Dodgers 9, Texas Rangers 0.