Plot
In 1988, Dottie Hinson attends the opening of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame. She sees pictures of many former teammates and friends, prompting a flashback to 1943.
With World War II threatening to shut down Major League Baseball (MLB), Chicago Cubs owner Walter Harvey persuades his fellow owners to bankroll a women's league. Ira Lowenstein is put in charge. Scout Ernie Capadino attends an industrial-league softball game in Oregon and likes what he sees in Dottie, the catcher for a local dairy. She is not interested, and is happy with her life, waiting for her husband Bob to return from the war. Her younger sister, Kit Keller, however, is desperate to escape and make something of herself. Capadino is unimpressed by Kit's batting and refuses to watch her pitch, but agrees to take her along if she changes Dottie's mind. Dottie agrees for her sister's sake.
Dottie and Kit travel to Harvey Field in Chicago for tryouts; en route, they force Capadino to accept homely second baseman Marla Hooch. They meet taxi dancer Mae "All-the-Way-Mae" Mordabito and her best friend, bouncer Doris Murphy, soft-spoken right fielder Evelyn Gardner, illiterate left fielder Shirley Baker, pitcher/shortstop and former Miss Georgia beauty queen Ellen Sue Gotlander, left field/relief pitcher Betty "Spaghetti" Horn, first baseman Helen Haley and Alice "Skeeter" Gaspers. They and five others constitute the Rockford Peaches, while 48 others make up the Racine Belles, the Kenosha Comets and the South Bend Blue Sox.
The Peaches are managed by former star, Cubs slugger Jimmy Dugan, a cynical alcoholic. He initially treats the whole concept as a joke, forcing Dottie to take over as on-field leader, initially. Dugan is also abrasive toward his players. The team travels with Evelyn's spoiled, bratty son Stillwell and team chaperone Miss Cuthburt. With a Life magazine photographer in the stands, Lowenstein begs the players to do something spectacular, as the league has attracted little attention. Dottie obliges, catching a popped-up ball behind home plate while doing a split. The resulting photograph makes the magazine cover. A publicity campaign draws more people to the ballgames, but the owners remain unconvinced.
The teammates bond. Marla marries a man named Nelson whom she met on a raucous roadhouse outing and leaves the team for the rest of the season, Mae teaches Shirley to read, and Evelyn writes a team song. Lowenstein promotes Dottie as the face of the league, making Kit resentful. Their sibling rivalry intensifies, resulting in Kit's trade to the Racine Belles.
The Peaches end the season with the league's best record, qualifying for the World Series. Jimmy gives Betty a telegram, informing her that her husband was killed in action in the Pacific Theater. Grief-stricken, she leaves the team. That evening, Dottie receives a surprise when Bob shows up, having been wounded and discharged from the Army. Jimmy discovers that Dottie is going home with Bob. Unable to persuade her to play in the World Series, he tells her she will regret her decision.
The Peaches face the Belles in the World Series, which goes the full seven games. Dottie rejoins the Peaches for the seventh game, while Kit is the starting pitcher for the Belles. With the Belles leading by a run in the top of the ninth, Dottie drives in the go-ahead run. Kit is distraught, but gets a second chance when she comes to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. She gets a hit and, ignoring the third base coach's sign to stop, scores the winning run by knocking her sister over at the plate and dislodging the ball from Dottie's hand.
The sellout crowd convinces Harvey to give Lowenstein the owners' support. After the game, the sisters reconcile before Dottie leaves with Bob.
Back in the present at Cooperstown, Dottie is reunited with the other players, including Kit, Capadino and Lowenstein; she sees that Jimmy died a year earlier, in 1987. The surviving Peaches sing Evelyn's team song and pose for a photo. During the closing credits, they play baseball once again at Doubleday Field.
Production
Development
Director Penny Marshall was inspired by the 1987 TV documentary A League of their Own, about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. She had never heard of the league, and contacted the film's creators, Kelly Candaele and Kim Wilson, to collaborate with the screenwriters, Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz, on producing a screenplay for 20th Century Fox. [11] Fox eventually passed on the script and Marshall signed with Sony Pictures, which was eager to produce it.
Casting
On MLB Network's Costas at the Movies in 2013, director Penny Marshall talked about her initial interest in Demi Moore for the part of Dottie Hinson: "Demi Moore, I liked, but by the time we came around, she was pregnant." [12] Debra Winger was then cast as Dottie [13] and spent three months training with the Chicago Cubs in preparation. [14] However, she dropped out of the production four weeks before the start of principal photography, [15] [16] later saying that the casting of Madonna was the reason for her decision. [14] Marshall chose Geena Davis to replace Winger. [17]
USC assistant baseball coach Bill Hughes was the film's technical adviser and put the film's ensemble cast through baseball camp three months before filming. [18]
Filming
Principal photography began July 10, 1991. [15] Filming the game scenes involved many physical mishaps among the actors: Anne Ramsay broke her nose with a baseball mitt while trying to catch a ball, and the large bruise seen on Renée Coleman's thigh at one point in the movie was real. [11] Discussing the skirts they wore playing in the film, Geena Davis said on MLB Network's Costas at the Movies in 2013, "Some of our real cast, from sliding into home, had ripped the skin off their legs. It was nutty." [19] In a 2021 interview, Petty claimed to have broken her foot during filming, [13] but reiterated her enjoyment of the shoot and the understanding of the film's importance at the time. [13]
The tryout scene, at a fictional Major League Baseball stadium in Chicago called Harvey Field, was filmed at the Chicago Cubs' home stadium, Wrigley Field. [15] The Rockford Peaches' home games were filmed at League Stadium in Huntingburg, Indiana, and the championship game against Racine was filmed at Bosse Field in Evansville, Indiana. [15] Additional games were filmed at Jay Littleton Ball Park in Ontario, California. [20] The house where the Rockford Peaches lived is in Henderson, Kentucky; in addition to interior shots, the exterior of the house is visible both when one of the team members weds and drives off with her husband and when Dottie is leaving with her husband. [21] Railroad depot and onboard train scenes were filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. [22] The final week of shooting was during late October 1991 in Cooperstown, New York, where 65 original AAGPBL members appeared in scenes recreating the induction of the league into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988. [23]
Due to the length of the schedule, the cast entertained themselves by putting on an elaborate amateur production, Jesus Christ Superstar Goes Hawaiian. [24]
Reception
Box office
A League of Their Own was released on July 1, 1992, and grossed $13.2 million in its first weekend, finishing second at the box office behind Batman Returns . In its second weekend it dropped just 15%, making $11.5 million and finishing first. It ended up a commercial success, making $107.5 million in the United States and Canada, but only $24.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $132.4 million against a production budget of $40 million. [2] [1] [27]
Critical response
A League of Their Own was well received by critics, who praised the cast. [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 82% based on 82 reviews, with an average score of 7/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Sentimental and light, but still thoroughly charming, A League of Their Own is buoyed by solid performances from a wonderful cast." [33] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 69 based 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [34] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. [35]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote: "Though big of budget, A League of Their Own is one of the year's most cheerful, most relaxed, most easily enjoyable comedies. It's a serious film that's lighter than air, a very funny movie that manages to score a few points for feminism in passing." [36] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three out of four stars, and wrote: "The movie has a real bittersweet charm. The baseball sequences, we've seen before. What's fresh are the personalities of the players, the gradual unfolding of their coach and the way this early chapter of women's liberation fit into the hidebound traditions of professional baseball." [37]
A League of Their Own was released as a 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray on October 16, 2012. [40]
Forty-seven former AAGPBL players reunited in New York to celebrate the film and the real women who inspired it. Events included a trip to Cooperstown for a special program at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, reminiscent of the film's final scene depicting AAGPBL players and family meeting to honor the Women's Professional Baseball League. The reunion wrapped up with a game of softball held at Alliance Bank Stadium in nearby Syracuse. [41]
Former players also made an appearance at Bosse Field in Evansville, Indiana on June 6, 2012, where many of the film's game scenes were filmed. Bosse Field still retains many of the Racine Belles themes from the movie. The event included an outdoor screening of the film, and a display of cars featured in the film. [42] In addition to Bosse Field, the production used Huntingburg, Indiana's League Stadium, another Southwestern Indiana field older than Bosse, that was renovated for it.
