A League of Their Own
**I also wrote about “A League of Their Own” over at In Their Own League, which can be read here.
I can’t remember the last time that I saw “A League of Their Own,” but it was clearly enough to forget how little of this film really feels like a traditional sports movie. Penny Marshall’s comedy-drama about the women’s baseball league that was started during World War II takes place mostly in the stadiums and locker rooms we see the Rockford Peaches in, but it’s more about the experience of playing baseball on a day to day basis than the thrill of the game, although that comes into play later. The disparity between my memory and the movie was jarring, but made revisiting this film all the more important, because it reminded me of what made this film worth watching to begin with.
The film begins with an older woman reluctantly packing to go on a trip. Her daughter tells her to make sure she remembers her baseball glove. They are going to Cooperstown, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. She goes to the stadium nearby, and we see old women playing a game of baseball, and the memories turn back to 1943. With the US entering World War II, a lot of pro baseball players are joining the fight. With men’s baseball shutting down, Chicago Cubs owner Walter Harvey (Garry Marshall) convinces a few of the owners to start a women’s baseball league in the interim. Anything to keep the money going. Now, it’s a matter of finding players. Scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) heads out to Oregon, and he finds Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and her sister, Kit Keller (Lori Petty). Dottie is a natural catcher and hitter; Kit is a terrific pitcher, but doesn’t know when to lay off the high stuff. They make their way to tryouts, and join the Rockford Peaches, coached by former MLB player Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks).
The screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (“Parenthood,” “Night Shift”) spends little time really caring how the Peaches do on the field unless it’s for a joke, or plays into the sibling rivalry between Dottie and Kit. What it does spend time on is character, and the struggle to get America to take women’s baseball seriously. One of the key figures in the film is Ira Lowenstein (David Strathairn), Harvey’s right hand man, who also sees how much of a talent Dottie could be, and wants to use it to help sell the sport. The film starts off with some look at the sexism that was evident for the women, but ultimately it’s about the team being there for one another, learning their stories, and supporting each other, especially when the worst happens when the Army has a message to deliver. The most emotional scene in the movie happens when a notice of a husband being killed in action happens, and seeing how the team wants to rally for their affected teammate is one of those moments where you feel Marshall and the actors putting their entire hearts into, and is a big sea change moment for Dugan, who had been on the drunkenly passive for most of the film about managing a girl’s baseball team. This film gets heart right every step of the way.
As Dottie and Kit, Davis and Petty do a great job etching the sibling rivalry central to the film, making the moments where it comes to a boil later in the film land just a bit stronger. As best friends Mae Mordabito and Doris Murphy, this might be some of Madonna’s and Rosie O’Donnell’s best work; it’s largely comedic, but the best friend bond the two have is palpable. We also get good performances by Megan Cavanagh as Marla Hooch, Anne Ramsay, Bill Pullman as Dottie’s husband, and really the entire cast. I wasn’t really aware of Hans Zimmer when the film came out, but I do love his score, listening to it again here. I’m mixed on the framing device, but the final scenes in the Hall of Fame make it worthwhile, right up to Madonna’s sappy end credits song. On the whole, “A League of Their Own” still rounds all the bases very well.
