Unless you're a history buff you may not know that there was a women's baseball league -- the All American Girls' Professional Baseball League, formed in 1943 -- and while the men were away fighting the war in Europe these women kept the spirit alive by playing an game that has become part of Americana. Itself a sports version of SWING SHIFT, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN is a sentimental journey back in time to when all this was taking place and it seemed that women would also claim this as their own sports in a male-dominated world. (They didn't, but it was good while it lasted.)
The story of how these very different women came together from all areas of the country, played under the tutelage of Jimmy Dugan, a one-time baseball hero who was now going through his own bad patch as an alcoholic, is the basis for Penny Marshall's movie. Focusing mainly on Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller, sisters living in Oregon who become a part of this team but due to Kit's hotheaded temper, eventually become estranged and playing opposite teams, the movie in itself becomes an interesting view of how cutthroat woman can be in the sports arena, but also, how a sisterhood can thrive in the face of a horror that hovers over like an invisible cloud.
With performances by Geena Davis (then at the top of her movie career, going from hit to hit to hit), Lori Petty, Tom Hanks (on the cusp of Oscar greatness and still in his boyish mode), Jon Lovitz, Rosie O'Donnell (playing herself, much the case in all of the movies she's appeared in), Madonna (actually able to act), David Strathairn, and Bill Pullman in a small but crucial part as Bob Hinson, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN is the equivalent of sitting back and taking a good look at your high-school yearbook and reminiscing. The final segment, in which the characters reunite in their older selves, is impacting because it features many of the actual players from the time.
The story of how these very different women came together from all areas of the country, played under the tutelage of Jimmy Dugan, a one-time baseball hero who was now going through his own bad patch as an alcoholic, is the basis for Penny Marshall's movie. Focusing mainly on Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller, sisters living in Oregon who become a part of this team but due to Kit's hotheaded temper, eventually become estranged and playing opposite teams, the movie in itself becomes an interesting view of how cutthroat woman can be in the sports arena, but also, how a sisterhood can thrive in the face of a horror that hovers over like an invisible cloud.
With performances by Geena Davis (then at the top of her movie career, going from hit to hit to hit), Lori Petty, Tom Hanks (on the cusp of Oscar greatness and still in his boyish mode), Jon Lovitz, Rosie O'Donnell (playing herself, much the case in all of the movies she's appeared in), Madonna (actually able to act), David Strathairn, and Bill Pullman in a small but crucial part as Bob Hinson, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN is the equivalent of sitting back and taking a good look at your high-school yearbook and reminiscing. The final segment, in which the characters reunite in their older selves, is impacting because it features many of the actual players from the time.