There’s more to this game than home runs, earned run averages and fielding percentages.
Baseball is about epic stories and the most stirring kind of human drama. It can reflect larger social shifts and historical triumphs; the game can sum up the larger progress and growth of a society. That much is clear in the story of Jackie Robinson, the infielder from Cairo, Ga., who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in the 1940s. Robinson’s career in baseball mirrored a much larger push toward equality and justice in the United States.
For Stephen Weitz and David Saphier, Robinson’s story is also the perfect fodder for good theater. The pair are part of the creative crew behind the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production of “Jackie & Me,” a show that explores some of the most pivotal moments in Robinson’s historic and groundbreaking career.
“I know a lot of actors and theater people who say, ‘I hate sports.’ I’ve never understood the disconnect,” Weitz said. “To me, they’re both drama. Sports is what we try to create onstage, which is drama unfolding.”
The drama in “Jackie & Me” goes a lot deeper than baseball. The show, penned by Colorado native Steven Dietz and based on the children’s book by Dan Gutman, delves into some of the ugliest parts of modern American history. Though the play is geared toward young audiences, the drama doesn’t shy away from the most difficult parts of Robinson’s story.
When Joey Stoshack, the show’s young protagonist, goes back in time to see Robinson play his first major league game, he also feels firsthand all of the hatred and racism that came along with the moment. That’s partly because his skin tone changes, but the lesson also comes when he sees what Robinson had to face when he started as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
“There’s one very overt instance when the fans and the opposing players are being very unpleasant,” said Saphier, who handled all of the historical research for the show. “There’s also a scene between Joey and Jackie where Jackie says, ‘If you want to learn, you have to learn everything. You have to remember that it’s not all going to be nice.’”
What’s clear is that this production is a labor of love for Weitz and Saphier, two huge baseball fans. With the rare chance to work on a show that transports them back in time as well to their youth, they genuinely care about the integrity of the game — as sordid as it may be at times. Saphier isn’t shy about his love for the Dodgers, and Weitz is a huge Philadelphia Phillies fan. Both have worked to laud the most positive, magical parts of the sport in the show, all the way down to the setting for the story.
Baseball stadiums hold part of the sport’s allure, especially the old ones like Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia that Weitz used to visit as a boy. In the concourses of those old concrete venues, the sounds and smells of the game teased fans until they came out of a tunnel into the stands, where the field would unfold in front of them. It was a much different experience than going to a game at an open-air venue like Coors Field.
The venue plays a role itself in “Jackie & Me,” as the round theater has been transformed into a small baseball stadium for the audience.
The design of the floor is the stuff of every young baseball fans’ dream, a virtual rug of overlapping, hand-painted pictures of classic baseball cards that looks like somebody “threw his collection up in the air and some landed face up and face down.”
The Denver Center’s designers came up with the initial idea, but it fell to Weitz to pick the players represented, letting the history of the game guide him.
He didn’t just randomly select players on the list. Plenty of thought went into finalizing the athletes that ended up immortalized on the floor.
The racism that existed in baseball in Robinson’s time tainted the game a bit, but the Steroid Era was one of baseball’s most recent black eyes. Weitz made sure players like Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens or Alex Rodriguez — notorious villains of the era — had no place there. Pete Rose, who bet on baseball as a manager and had his all-time record number of hits overshadowed by his behavior, also didn’t make the cut. Weitz kicked out a few others because of his own personal allegiances as a rabid fan.
What’s left is a mix of some of the game’s all-time greats, some local Colorado Rockies heroes and recently retired New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, who was the last player in baseball to wear Robinson’s No. 42. That number was retired throughout the league.
“We think that’s going to be one of the fun things before the show for the audience, leaning over and checking out the floor,” said Weitz, who doesn’t share the enthusiasm Saphier showed when he saw a card featuring former Boston Red Sox batting champion Wade Boggs.
That tapestry makes a fitting stage for one of the show’s central moments, the 1947 game when Robinson made a stride that went far beyond the world of sports. That game was human drama at its best, and it was the kind of moment that’s made Weitz a lifelong sports fan.
“Every game, no matter how bad it is, has a story to it,” Weitz said.
“Jackie & Me”
Runs from Nov. 15 to Dec. 22 at
the Space Theatre at the Denver
Center for the Performing Arts.
Tickets start at $29.
Information: 303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org.
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com. Reach reporter Courtney Oakes at 720-449-9706 or sports@aurorasentinel.com