‘Baseball’ Not Ready for the Major League

A group of former Little League teammates haven’t seen one another since they blew their bid for the state championship 20 years ago. Now, their paths cross again--and a long-buried secret that has blighted their lives resurfaces.

The problem with “Baseball,” at the Stella Adler, is that the secret, which galvanizes the dramatic action, isn’t really made clear until the bottom of the ninth. In this case, the delay in information results not in enhanced suspense, but rather in loss of focus.

Up until the delayed denouement tips us off as to what this megillah is actually about, the play comes across as a loosely connected series of actors’ moments, a too-calculated enterprise in which each performer gets a chance to show off his stuff.

In this watchable but self-indulgent evening, that stuff is considerable, the staging taut, the performances balanced and well-considered. Yet the play is overlong and too actor-centric for its own good.

“Baseball” started off as a joint effort of the cast, which workshopped the material in improv sessions until writer-director Stefan Marks took over as team manager, shaping the drama into its present form. Now, Marks needs to trim and shape the material a bit more, whittle down a few extraneous subplots, and incorporate the show’s live music more organically into the context of the action before “Baseball” gets drafted to the majors.

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* “Baseball,” Stella Adler Theater, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 28. $10. (888) 525-0619. Running time: 2 hours.