Playwright José Cruz González and director James Vásquez discuss friendship, legacy, and the inspiration for the world-premiere play Under a Baseball Sky.

Interview by Danielle Mages Amato

Could you say a bit about your history together and where the idea for this play came from?

James Vásquez: I first met José when I was being considered to direct the world premiere of his play American Mariachi. When the two of us sat down together, we just connected. It felt like a relationship, a conversation that had been ongoing, even though it was the first time we’d ever met.

José Cruz González: I felt the same. We had a shorthand from the beginning. And then when we
went into rehearsals for American Mariachi, I realized that I just love watching him work with actors. He’s so generous.

JV: I think that José writes from the heart, and I direct from the heart. It’s always important for me, with a company of actors, to find what I consider the heart of the story. So that’s part of where our shorthand comes from: we lead from a similar place and drive toward a similar goal.

JCG: So when I got the commission from the Globe to write a new play, James and I were already talking about this idea. Years ago, I found a little book at a sale outside a public library: it was Richard Santillán’s Mexican American Baseball in Los Angeles. I thought, “Oh my gosh! This sounds like a potential idea for a play.” I put the book on my shelf for a long time, but I always wanted to write that play. And that’s what I pitched to the Globe and to James.

I don’t think many people are aware of the history of Mexican Americans and baseball.

JCG: No, that’s true. I did a two-week residency during the summer at the New Harmony Project, and for those two weeks, I looked up everything I possibly could about it. I watched Ken Burns’s Baseball documentary, and we didn’t exist in that story at all, you know? I thought, “Wow! We are invisible.” And while I was there, I reached out to Richard Santillán, who connected me with Mária García, who was writing a book about the history of Mexican American baseball in San Diego. She gave me a tour of Barrio Logan, and we talked about the Settlement House, and about the gentrification that’s going on in that community, and, of course, about baseball. And all that research created the story that would eventually become Under a Baseball Sky.

Were you a big baseball fan before you wrote this play, José?

JCG: Not really! James helped a lot with the baseball, because his father was a high school baseball coach. I didn’t really understand the game, other than watching it and going, “Okay, that’s cool. Let me get a hot dog.” So I would call up James’s father and ask him questions about baseball, and he was really great at explaining things to me. Having his father involved was just beautiful because the whole play is about family, and I think it bonded the two of us in a deeper way.

JV: This play is wildly personal for me on many levels. I started going to Jack Murphy Stadium with my dad when I was four or five years old: getting the cheap, cheap, cheap seats and rooting for the Padres. Or sometimes we would sit on the hill by our apartment complex because we could hear the games from there and see the fireworks when they shot them off. And with my father being a coach, the principles that surround baseball just stuck with me—the importance of teamwork and community especially. That was how my dad led his life, as a member of a team, and how I work now in theatre, as a member of an ensemble. My grandfather gave that to my dad. My dad gave it to me, and now I get to share it, through this play, with my friends and family.

JCG: You know, the first baseball game I ever went to, I think I was maybe eight, and when they stood up for the National Anthem, I’d never done that before. And when they sang, “O say can you see,” I thought they were saying my name! I thought they were saying “José, can you see.” I thought, “My God! How do they know I’m here?”

In the play, baseball is not just personal, it’s also political. Is that right?

JCG: Yes. A lot of these communities, you had companies teaching the game of baseball to their workers, their immigrant workers, so they could work together, learn to be Americans, and be better workers in the long run. But what ultimately also evolved was union organizing, and voting, and people finding their voice. On the baseball field, that’s where they bloomed into community. And this happened all across the country.

What led you to tell the story through the relationship between Teo and Elí, a young man and this older woman who feels almost symbolic and larger than life? 

JV: For me, some of the big themes of the story are about community and about the history of who we are and where we come from. My grandfather always used to say, “Remember who you are.” I think the play is about passing down who we are, generationally. So to me, Elí embodies all that history: all the good, the bad, the ugly, the pain, and the joy. She’s that pillar of the community, that voice we look to that says, “Keep going. Press forward.”

JCG: Elí, to me… She’s my mother. She’s my grandmother. She’s all those strong women who had to carry the world on their shoulders, carry their families on their shoulders, and fight for every scrap. In a way that’s what I see with these communities like Barrio Logan. That’s an example of a community fighting for survival and existence, and to say, “This is who we are.” There are many communities like that across the country.

So how old is Elí, really?

JCG: (laughs) To me Elí has always been ageless. She’s lived a really long, long time, and she does not forget. She’s lived that history. It’s tattooed in her heart. And I thought a lot about August Wilson’s character Aunt Ester, who’s like 300 years old. She’s got the collective history of her community, and she has to pass it on. But with Elí and Teo, I also wanted to look at two wounded souls who need to find healing, and that healing comes through baseball, this game they love. 