What I liked
Good structure and dialogue, absent any historical context (including statistics, which would have helped a lot).
What I didn't like
Inattention to (or simple ignorance of) period detail—-like telephones (NOT brightly-colored plastic) and jockey shorts!
Lack of historical context! I STILL want to know how the principals earned the fortunes which allowed them to own and manage their own baseball teams! And were they real individuals, or fictional composites?
My overall impression
I walked in eager to know more about the history of black baseball, before my time, and walked out an hour later with my expectations thwarted! This well-crafted play, with three sharply-drawn characters, provided NO context and I left knowing no more about the subject overall than when I went in! Maybe the script would need to be twice as long, but I wanted to know WHO the three principal characters actually were and HOW they came to own baseball teams! (Also, it was never clear how “the one white guy” was related to them!) I can’t fault the actors, who obviously knew their craft and their characters—-but I didn’t know who they were playing! Only in the last quarter-hour, when Jackie Robinson appears on the historic scene (and well-played) did I have a touchstone to the historical context! The VO “news broadcasts” were NO help!
