Sports, and baseball in particular, have long enjoyed an almost mythological status in American culture. While the off-the-field problems of some players today has degraded that status, during the time period in which August Wilson sets his play, Fences, hero worship directed towards baseball players was at its peak. That Wilson's main protagonist, Troy Maxson, used to be play in the Negro Leagues, the blacks-only baseball league created out of necessity because African American athletes were not welcome in Major League Baseball locker rooms, makes the use of the baseball-as-myth metaphor all the more appropriate.
Within the broad expanse of potential baseball metaphors or analogies, that of the "strike out" is particularly prominent. In baseball, of course, a batter is given a number of opportunities via pitches thrown by an opposing player to swing at the ball and, hopefully, get a hit (preferably but statistically unlikely a home run). The batter, however, can only swing and miss, or fail to swing at a pitch that the umpire determines was in "the strike zone," three times before he, the batter, is called "out." In day-to-day life, then, we are admonished with our first mistake by being informed that the error in question constitutes "strike one." The next mistake or failure is labeled "strike two." The third mistake or failure, then, is obviously "strike three, you're out!" You've had your three chances to swing, and you failed.
Because baseball was central to Troy Maxson's life, and because one of his sons, Cory, shows promising potential to play college football on a scholarship, the baseball analogies constitute natural interjections into the play's dialogue.
"I'm gonna tell you what your mistake was, see . . . . you swung at the ball and didn't hit it. That's strike one. See, you in the batter's box now. You swung and you missed. That's strike one. Don't you strike out."
In the context of Wilson's play, these comments by Troy directed at Cory during a heated exchange employ the baseball metaphor to imply that Cory has failed to meet his father's expectations. It further implies that there will be only two more chances. Later, near the end of Act II, Scene I, Troy again applies the "three strikes and you're out" metaphor, only in this instance he is describing for his wife, Rose, a long-suffering desperately lower-income matriarch, the limited opportunities he's had as a black man in the racist South:
"Rose, I done tried all my life to live decent. . .to lead a clean. . .hard. . .and useful life. I tried to be a good husband to you. . .But, you born with two strikes on you before you come to the plate. . .You can't afford a called strike [the pitcher's throw is accurate, within the batter's strike zone, but the batter did not swing at the pitch, making it a "called strike"]. If you go down, you go down swinging."
Troy is emphasizing for the benefit of Rose the importance of seizing opportunities and taking one's best shot at victory. By referring to his having been "born with two strikes on you before you come to the plate," Troy is noting the disadvantages he suffered before he even had a chance, one of those disadvantages, strike-one, if you will, being his ethnicity, a black man in a white man's world. Wilson continues to use the "three strikes" metaphore throughout Fences because the theme of baseball is so important to the history of the main protagonist. By the time Major League Baseball was integrated with the signing by the Brooklyn Dodgers of African American player Jackie Robinson, Wilson's character, Troy, had already seen his playing days come to an end. He missed the big show, too old now to take advantage of the opportunities integration would have provided. Wilson uses the "three strikes" metaphor to illuminate the limited and tenuous opportunities his lower-income African American family has to find success.
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