Movie Review: A League of Their Own

Alas, it is late in the week, and I've finally found a smidge of time to watch this movie. A League of Their Own is unique when it comes to baseball films. It's one of the few baseball films out there that I can think of that focuses mainly on women, and women only.

First I will provide a brief summary; the setting is America during the Second World War. Men from Major League Baseball go overseas to fight in the war effort. Team owners, who are out of money because the league has shut down get together to find women across the country who are willing to play in a women's pro baseball league.

Their search leads them to Oregon, where they come across Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis). Dottie is asked to play but she declines. Her sister, Kit (Lori Petty) offers to play, and their slimy recruiter, played by Jon Lovitz agrees on the condition that Dottie comes with her. After a bit of haggling, the two sisters both try out and are placed on the same team, the Rockford Peaches.

They recruit the services of former player turned drunken buffoon Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) to manage the Peaches. He's a very real character in the movie, starting off ashamed, and embarrassed by his job managing a woman's baseball team. He harshly displays this attitude on multiple occasions throughout the film.

Dottie eventually grows to become a star in the league, leaving Kit to live in her shadow. Shit gets real when Kit is traded from the Peaches after Dottie had requested that she wanted to be traded, not Kit. Kit blames Dottie for the trade, and the two sister quarrel with one another, and it leads to an outburst in front of the entire team.

Later, Dottie's husband returns home, and she considers leaving the game right before the championship series they're supposed to play against Racine, the team Kit now plays for. Slowly but surely the series is tied at three games a piece, leading to a final showdown between the two sisters.

There's a debate surrounding this clip. I think Dottie dropped the ball on purpose. I think she knew that she needed to drop the ball in order to save her relationship with her sister.

There's so much to love about this movie, great acting, drama, laughs. You really learn about the characters as the movie goes along. The relationship between the two sisters is clearly damaged, Kit feels that she's been living in Dottie's shadow for quite some time. It's not just about Dottie's fame in the league, but her fame elsewhere. Kit is always trying to overcompensate for the fact that people still view her as Dottie's younger sister, and not her own person, perhaps she views herself that way as well.

Jimmy Dugan is also a character that speaks to the audience through action. A drunk, former player down on his luck, stuck managing a women's team, while most of his former teammates are still playing, or at war. In the end, he grows to love the team, and even turns down a job managing a AAA-affiliate team to remain the manager of the Peaches.

It has everything that every other baseball movie has. It even has acting appearances by Rosie O'Donnell (who's constant heckling of opposing players is hilarious) and Madonna. Both of whom play their roles as pals from New York with a slight attitude very well.

You pretty much run the emotional gamut with this movie. You feel angered, at Jimmy Dugan, sometimes at Kit, and the general misogyny of the time, you feel frustrated with Dottie's downplaying of her achievements, and her inability to see that her sister is really struggling, you feel saddened when the sisters fight with one another, the movie's suspenseful - in particular the scene where a war letter informing a woman of their husband's death in the war is delivered to their dressing room - and you just feel downright good at the end.

I've compiled a list below of extra scenes that I like that haven't been covered yet.  Here are my personal favorites.

There's no crying in baseball. The iconic line uttered by Hanks' character:

In this scene, Jimmy Dugan is less than impressed with the heckling of one of his player's children during the game, I believe the video description is something along the lines of "Tom Hanks throws a glove at a fat kid." (Thank you internet):

This next scene is a good one. After Dottie's husband returns and Kit gets traded, Dottie initially doesn't see a reason to continue playing baseball. Dugan tries to convince her otherwise:

Overall, this is one of my favorite baseball movies, it's funny, sad, dramatic, and different. I'm not going to slap a star rating on it, because it's an old movie, and star ratings are dumb - but I will say this is a damn good movie, and if you haven't seen it yet, stop reading this and go watch it now.