A League of Their Own: A Game Without Competition

In 1992, actress-turned-director Penny Marshall became the first woman to direct two films to gross over $100 million. The first of those films was Big, a Tom Hanks comedy about a boy who, through carnival magic, is turned into an adult overnight. The second of these films is A League of Their Own. This was not a story based in fantasy but one based on the oft untold story of the AAGPBL, the women’s baseball league that was formed during the years when all of their male counterparts were off fighting in World War II. 

Even after nearly 30 years, the film still seems to resonate and remain utterly quotable with lines like “There’s no crying in baseball!” or even “Dirt in the skirt!” Today, Amazon is developing a TV show adaptation starring Abbi Jacobson and Nick Offerman. But why of all the great baseball movies that have been made, has this one remained as popular as ever? Though Marshall grounds the film in a familiar setting for a sports movie, she flips the script. This movie does not prize the solitary efforts of a great athlete and the thrill of a heated competition, but the fruits of solidarity and sisterhood.

The film focuses on the relationship between two sisters, Dottie and Kit. Both play baseball but Dottie, the oldest, seems to gain the most attention. While this competition drives both to do better, the pressure of comparison harms Kit’s game. In one of the first scenes, Kit laments how the town views her compared to Dottie. The comparison does not motivate her to be better but instead makes her feel inescapably invisible. When Dottie is around, no one sees her. Right off the bat (no pun intended), this sports film suggests that competition has an inherent toxicity. Throughout the film we are presented with this tension even as the two sisters rise up on their team, the Rockford Peaches. Even though they are miles from home, Kit still feels invisible. 

After a climactic fight between the two, Kit is transferred to the Racine Belles and we don’t see her again until the final game of the Series. After finally seeing the effects that the competition has on an emotional Kit, Dottie makes a fatal decision for her team. In a vital moment, Dottie literally drops the ball and Kit is taken off on the shoulders of her teammates, finally seen and finally a hero. It’s extremely interesting that Penny Marshall chose to follow the most successful team in the league in one of their few unsuccessful seasons. Winning was never the point of the film. By the end of the game, a heartfelt moment between the two sisters finally allows the two to look at their competition as just funny, not heartwrenching. They repeat the words they used to yell at each other but this time with a smile. Through solidarity, the two have found healthy competition.

But they are not the only members of the team that need to learn this lesson. Their own coach, a former MLB player who wasted his future on booze, has to learn to accept that he is no longer a star. In a really great performance from Tom Hanks as Jimmy Duggan, he slowly turns from a tired and resigned coach to a passionate one. The first big step comes when he finally gets excited by a game and decides to relieve Dottie of her duties as ghost manager. The real turning point is actually after his famous line “There is no crying in baseball!” People often forget the context of the line but when he says it to one of his players, the other girls on the team disagree with him and clap as he is finally sent off for cursing out the umpire. Duggan is still upset at having to work with women. Tears are still feminine and weak, but from that moment on he begins to change. 

When a telegram from the war department comes informing Betty that her husband is dead, Duggan is the one to deliver it. When she bursts into tears, he doesn’t flinch or cringe. He hugs her and lets the other girls cry with her. By the end of the Series, when the same woman he yelled at earlier makes the same mistake during a game, he doesn’t yell although he barely hides his urge to. But it’s that consideration of his players' feelings that allows her to succeed. In the next play of the game, she makes no mistake. At the end of the game, Duggan makes it known that even though he was offered a coaching job for a male team, he’s going to stay with the Peaches. Being with these women has dissolved his sadness at the shortness of his career, how could he possibly abandon them now?

That’s what this movie does best. Other sports movies inspire you to be the best and train harder. While that is all fine and good, this movie makes you want to be a part of a team. You aren’t envious of these girls’ skills so much as their camaraderie and friendship. Before, these girls were loners or outcasts, but this team finally gives them a sense of confidence. Rosie O’Donnell’s character, Doris, puts it perfectly when she says “[The boys] always made me feel like I was wrong. Like I was some sort of a weird girl or a strange girl or not even a girl just ‘cause I could play. I believed them too, but not anymore. I mean, look, there’s a lot of us. I think we’re all alright.” Doris is just one of the girls to have felt like a freak and finally been accepted by this group of girls.

Before Dottie and Kit get to tryouts, the scout takes them to see another girl. She plays amazing but when she reveals her face, she doesn’t strike the scout as pretty. Appalled by his rudeness, Kit and Dottie refuse to leave until he takes the girl, Marla. Marla ends up finally being accepted in a group and on a night where her teammates give her a dress and some makeup, she meets her future husband. After a dry season, Marla is flooded with the love from her teammates who serve as her bridesmaids later. Another girl, Shirley, arrives at the tryout unable to read. When the tryout coach yells at her for lingering at the roster sheets, her future teammate comes up, helps her, and welcomes her. Later even Mae (played by Madonna in her best performance) helps to teach her to read, albeit with a dirty book. Watching these funny but deeply moving acts of kindness gives you an overwhelming want to be a part of that, to be able to give and receive that kindness.

Marshall celebrates the world these women of the league forged for the rest of us. During the credits, Marshall even invited former veterans of the league to be filmed playing. Still, Marshall recognizes that this world was not an all-inclusive paradise. In a small but important moment of the film, Marshall pays tribute to those who were excluded. When the girls’ ball flies outfield, they ask a few black women to throw it over. They fire it back so hard it hurts the player’s gloved hand. Dottie looks over amazed and the woman simply nods. For Marshall, solidarity isn’t solidarity unless it is intersectional. That small scene continues to inspire us to create spaces where they can also enjoy that camaraderie. The entire film doesn’t hit a false note. With fantastic acting and a touching story, it proves to be a winning film even if the Peaches themselves don’t find glory in the end.