A League of Their Own Review

        The 90s is probably the only time where the sports genre has been experimental. What I mean is that, you had variety stemming through kid-centric sports movies like The Mighty Ducks trilogy and The Sandlot.  Additionally, basketball movies started to explode with He Got Game and White Men Can’t Jump. Hell, Space Jam is now considered a cult-classic due in part with how big Michael Jordan was from a pop-culture point of view.  I think out of all of the sports films of the decade, A League of Their Own is probably the one that’s The best one. 

1. No Crying

        Part of this movie is historical and the other is purely made for entertainment. The last part doesn’t derail the film at any point. I wasn’t aware that a lot of athletes playing professionally during World War 2 were drafted for combat. I’ve looked into it deeper and in the NFL, some teams temporarily merged due to teams having few players to be competitive. In the MLB, most of the ballplayers went into combat. 

        With that, we follow Dottie who goes to Cooperstown, NY to attend the Baseball Hall of Fame for her contributions to the game. Mostly shown via flashback, we see her and younger sister Kit get invited to play in a new women’s league. As well as following the newly assembled Rockford Peaches season being led by the drunkard manager Jimmy. That guy is something else, I’ll elaborate more on him in a moment. 

        To say that this film has a great assemblage of characters is one thing. None of them feel wasted and all of them have that endearing edge to them where they’re all likeable. For only appearing a few minutes, Don Lovitz’ character is hilarious. Obviously, he’s a comedian, but just how he’s quick and easily short-tempered. I love how he’s willing to leave our main characters when they scoff at him when he’s visiting their barn.

        The movie is true to its core an underdog story, but in some nuance way where it’s not by the numbers. You know like when they have a win streak and then suffer through the inevitable losing streak. What makes the movie work is that everyone’s got something to prove. It’s alluded to in the beginning, but I’ll talk about that in a moment. With the new league starting their inaugural season, some of the spectators scoff and mock most of the players. 

        It’s shown when the women must wear the uniforms that seem impractical for playing. This was back at the time when women got the wrong end of the stick sometimes, right down to wearing skirts while playing ball. There’s even a moment when one of the players slide into one of the bases and gets her thigh bruised badly. 

        While talking about the main theme of the movie, the characters practically represent the idea. None more so than Tom Hanks’ character. As I’ve said before, no actor had a massive string of successes than Tom Hanks. He gets top billing than his co-actors, which shows just how much of a draw he was at the time. 

        Watching him play the washed up player turned manager is a sight to see. At first he’s not invested, but within the season Dottie helps him at least give one iota of a care. The best scene involving him is the most memorable and quotable. Even funnier is that we don’t even see the ensuing play that gets him riled up. Just seeing him rip and shout at the young player is hilarious since he’s frustrated at the mess he’s in. My personal favorite moment is when he finally shuts up the player’s son. The only time we see a child disciplined the right way. 

        Lastly, as the movie gets going, we see that Kit is internally jealous at her older sister. So much so that the younger sister gets traded on the eve of the Championship series. I think some people are upset with the way the movie ended, specifically how Dottie let Kit finally have her moment. It was never about having a definite winner in Dottie’s point of view, but on the idea of finally breaking out. As I mentioned before that moment was teased when Older Dottie talks to her grandsons just before she takes off.

2. Legacy

        The movie was a hit, and I will definitely say that the film is one of the best sports movies of the 90s. It was unorthodox to have a movie be loosely based on a sporting event that happened. When films show a different side of history, those are the ones that I find fascinating since they add on to the history of sport. I wouldn’t have known they were the precursors to other Women’s professional leagues. As well as how Americans dealt with War and having something to keep their mind of it. 

        When it celebrated it’s 20th anniversary, most of the surviving players reunited in Cooperstown and a softball game was played. Little did I know that there were spinoffs that appeared on TV after the film was made. From what I gathered; a series of the same name only last for about five episodes aired on CBS. And just last year, Amazon released a reboot series of the same name, while it lasted longer than the former, it appears to only have 12 episodes as of now.  

3. Overall

        A League of Their Own is one of the best Sports films I’ve seen. There’s nothing more to elaborate.