[Baseball] Fences

With the many baseball references in Fences, I decided to write about African Americans and Baseball for this blog. Early in the first act Troy Bono and Rose discuss baseball and race. This leads me to the Major leagues today, and the question of why the percentage of African Americans in MLB is so much less than in the NFL and NBA. In 1975 the number was 27 percent, and by 1995 it had dropped to about 19 percent. However over the past decade and a half the number had fallen even more, with just 9.5 percent of Players on 2010 opening day rosters African American. There are many theories for this decline, but one of the easiest to identify is college athletics. College baseball is much less of a moneymaker compared to Football and Basketball, so the number of full scholarships is significantly lower. Also compared to football the number of total roster spots is less than half. The SEC conference shows some scary numbers, as states with African American populations as high as 36%(Mississippi) only one of the 13 schools had as many as 4 African Americans on the 2006 roster (Tennessee), with 2 schools (Mississippi and Mississippi state) having non on the Roster. The fact that none of these schools had any African American Coaches on staff in 2006 might explain some of the numbers, as recruiting in such a big factor. But when it comes to money at the next level, the top NCAA football and Basketball players are essentially guaranteed both money and fame after college. Baseball is a much longer road to the Majors, with most MLB players spending at least a few years in the minors before making it to the majors, if they do at all.

Krapp's Last Tape

Holy Krapp! This play was like nothing else I had ever read before. Apart from being 4 pages, I thought the amount of stage directions in relation to the amount of text was overwhelming. With only a 4 page play, I see it a very aggressive choice having the first full page, and about another half of a page throughout the text being dedicated to stage directions. In particular the two bananas that Krapp eats and or peels seemed noteworthy. "Takes out a large banana, peers at it,... He turns advancing to edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels it, drops skin at his been, puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless" The detail here is so different to that found in the play we just read, the Importance of Being Earnest. As said in lecture, Beckett gave little insight to the directors and actors performing his works and claimed there is nothing more than what is on the text. This makes sense as he gives all the detail an actor needs. However this does inhibit the creativity of the actor, versus other plays where the characters and actions can vary drastically from performance to performance. And back to the Banana, the second one more specifically, "Takes out a second large banana, peers at it... strokes Banana, peels it, tosses skin in to pit, puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, starting vacuously before him. Finally he has an idea and puts the banana in his waist coat pocket." This is what got to me. I may not be your average banana eater, but i have never thought to put a peeled, or un peeled for that matter, banana back in my pocket. Maybe Krapp would love this Raffi Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5C6X9vOEkU

The Cherry Orchard

GEORGE: Yeah. I think we really go something here.

JERRY: What do we got?

GEORGE: An idea.

JERRY: What idea?

GEORGE: An idea for the show.

JERRY: I still don't know what the idea is.

GEORGE: It's about nothing. 

JERRY: Right.

GEORGE: Everybody's doing something, we'll do nothing.

JERRY: So, we go into NBC, we tell them we've got an idea for a show about nothing.

GEORGE: Exactly.

JERRY: They say, "What's your show about?" I say, "Nothing."

GEORGE: There you go.

(A moment passes)

JERRY: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.

Seinfeld, the self-proclaimed “show about nothing,” shares many similarities to The Cherry Orchard. While New York city in the early 1990s and Russia in 1904 are not exactly the two most similar places, both draw comedy in the absence of events. In The Cherry Orchard many of the events take place off stage, included arguably the most important; the auction of the property. While Seinfeld does have simple plots in each episode the majority of them end with a screen shot of a major event or twist in the plot that is left open ended and not returned to in subsequent episodes. Liubov fails to act and eventually loses her estate, which parallels George Costanza frequent failures in life as he returns to his parent’s home and moves in after multiple failed jobs. Seinfeld draws many of its laughs from situations that are easy to relate to and very common through out contemporary society. Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard also draws laughter from everyday situations and even the lack there of. The Failure to listen to Lopakhin’s advice about revamping the orchard can be related to anything life throws at you that brings the shoulda coulda woulda type questions and hindsight. In the end there are relationships that are made and the youth in the play has some success, much like there are things that go well for the Seinfeld characters in any given episode, although throughout the show they are meant to have ups and downs much like any average citizen would. 

The Importance of Being Earnest

My post will not let me post if because of form errors. I apologize to by dedicated followers and hope to overcome this technical difficultly soon