Baseball as History and Myth in August Wilson's: Fences

The game of has long been regarded as a metaphor for American dream--an expression of hope, democratic values, and drive for individual success. According to John Thorn, has become the great repository of national ideals, symbol of all that [is] good in American life: fair play (sportsmanship); rule of law (objective arbitration of disputes); equal opportunity (each side has its innings); brotherhood of man (bleacher harmony); and (qtd. in Elias, Fit 3). Baseball's playing itself has been viewed as archetypal--a walled garden, an American Eden marked by youth and timelessness. (There are clocks in game, and runners move counter-clockwise around bases,) As former Yale University president and former commissioner Bart Giamatti once wrote, is the last pure place where Americans can dream (qtd. in Elias, Fit 9). In his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences (1987), however, August Wilson uses both history and mythology of to challenge authenticity of American dream. Set in 1957, just before start of civil rights movement, Fences takes place at a time when organized has finally become integrated, but when racial discrimination remains widespread. (1) Indeed, protagonist, Troy Maxon--a former League slugger--is consumed with bitterness, convinced that if are a black man in America, you born with two strikes on before come to plate (69). Throughout play Wilson places Troy within historical context of Leagues, allowing his character to echo feelings of actual black ballplayers who were denied a chance to compete at major-league level. Furthermore, by situating Troy within three of baseball's mythic settings--(1) garden, (2) battlefield, and (3) graveyard or sacred space--Wilson contradicts idea of America as a field of dreams, using instead as a metaphor for heroic defiance. (2) In Fences Wilson taps into a history of black that began in America in decades following Civil War and continued in various forms until 1947, when Jackie Robinson finally crossed baseball's color line. Roger Kahn explains that no documents attest to baseball's apartheid. There was simply an understanding among every major league club owner and every minor league club owner for more than 60 years that blacks could play in so-called organized baseball (38). The National Baseball League, founded in 1920 and reorganized in 1933, contained teams such as Chicago American Giants and St. Louis Stars (and, in 1930s, Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords--the two clubs most likely to be Troy Maxon's team in Fences). (3) The American League, originally formed in 1923 as Eastern Baseball League, boasted teams such as Baltimore Black Sox and Cuban Stars, and often faced National League in a World Series. Legendary stars like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell all made their livelihoods playing for these segregated teams, never having opportunity before 1947 to compete at major-league level. So what would life in Leagues have been like for Wilson's character Troy Maxon? As Robert Peterson explains in Only Ball was White (1970), black ballplayers were traveling men--barnstorming country on any kind of transportation they could find. They rode in packed automobiles and on broken-down buses, playing a game almost every day and competing all over country. To supplement their incomes, they often played winter ball in Florida, California, Cuba, or Mexico. Negro was played year round (Peterson 3). According to first baseman Buck Leonard, this itinerant life was not an easy one: Some seasons we would play 210 ball games. You're riding every day, playing in different towns. No air conditioning. …