• Today’s Movie: A League of Their Own
• Year of Release: 1992
• Stars: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty
• Director: Penny Marshall

This movie is not on my list of essential films…but it is on my list of greatest baseball movies.

NOTE: This installment of Story Time With J-Dub is an exercise in participation for the Third Luso World Blog-A-Thon being hosted by Critica Retro and Spell Bound with Beth Ann. Basically, this is an event celebrating descendants of the Lusophone (Portuguese speaking) world and their films. This event has been a previous winner of the Best Blog Event award from the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA).

But rather than being just a standard movie review, this installment of Story Time is also about a true-life tale that shares a connection with the featured film.

The blog-a-thon theme’s connection to today’s movie: Tom Hanks is of Portuguese ancestry. The true-life tale: well…read it for yourself 🙂

You can see all the contributors to this blog-a-thon here:

The Movie:

Essentially, the guts of this movie comes in the form of a mega-flashback in the mind of the elderly Dottie Hinson (played by Anne Cartwright). The opening scene is of the elder Hinson attending a reunion of her former team, the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). This league existed between 1942 and 1954. As the story evolves, the viewer is attuned to the fact that Dottie Hinson was one of the stars of the league in it’s initial season. It also becomes clear that her younger sister Kit also played in the league, there was quite the rivalry between the two, and they have not seen each other in years.

The confluence of those two factors overwhelm Dottie as she steps on the field where the reunion is beginning, and the memories coming flooding back.

To set the stage, a meeting is shown featuring Walter Harvey (played by Garry Marshall), who owns a candy-bar empire and a Major League Baseball team owner. The trained eye will pick up on the cues that Harvey is ostensibly the real-life chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs William Wrigley (who was the main force behind the real league)..

In any event, Harvey and a group of other major league owners are pondering their options should the recent American entry into the Second World War cause baseball to be shut down. After all, many stars of the “National Past-Time” had already entered the military, and many more were likely to share the same fate, either through volunteerism or the draft. As a result, Harvey recruits one of his marketing people Ira Lowenstein (played by David Strathairn), to come up with a solution. Hence, the AAGPBL was born.

To find players for the new league, Lowenstein unleashes an army of talent scouts; one of which being the ascerbic and boorish Ernie Capadino (played by John Lovitz). Capadino’s travails take him to Willamette, Oregon where he finds a co-ed fastpitch softball league featuring the sisters Kit Keller (played by Lori Petty) and the young Dottie Hinson (played by Geena Davis).

Despite the fact Capadino originally doesn’t want Kit and Dottie’s reluctance, he eventually gets the sisters on the train back to Chicago where the tryouts for the AAGPBL will be held. This process gives the viewer an insight to the genesis of the rivalry between the ball-playing siblings. Along the way, they stop in Fort Collins, Colorado to take a look at switch-hitting slugger Marla Hooch (played Megan Cavanagh).

Capadino also has no interest in Hooch because of her homely, “tom boy” nature, but he relents when Kit and Dottie refuse to get back on the train unless Marla is on board as well.

Eventually, Kit, Dottie, and Marla make it to Chicago’s Wrigley Harvey Field. As all the prospective players are meeting, an “initiation” scene occurs between the sisters and Mae Mordabito (played by Madonna) and Doris Murphy (played by Rosie O’Donnell). After some trash-talking, Doris fires her best throw straight at Dottie, who simply snatches it out of the air with her bare hand. Old-school, hardcore baseball fans will recognize that as a tribute to Hall-of-Fame catcher Ernie Lombardi, who was notorious for challenging rookie pitchers to a bet that he could handle their best fastballs without a mitt. Legend has it he never lost that bet.

It shouldn’t surprise anybody that the players to which we’ve been introduced end up on the same team; the Rockford Peaches. Once the team’s rosters were selected, the players discover what the viewer already knows…sex appeal is as important to the AAGPBL as is the player’s ability. The uniforms take away any doubt. They also discover that the league rules dictate no smoking, drinking, dating, and all players must attend charm and beauty classes. Lowenstein crushes any protest of the rules by stating there’s effectively a “zero tolerance” policy to any non-compliance.

Now that his league has players, Harvey needs managers. His concept is to use “names” in that role to serve as attractions for fans. At his palatial estate, Harvey pitches the job to the boozed out, yet still legendary slugger Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks).

Now, Dottie’s next rivalry emerges. Being that Jimmy is usually drunk or hungover, Dottie essentially takes on the duties of the manager. Lowenstein takes exception to this, and confronts Jimmy, who dismisses him saying “I’ve been told what my role here is.”

From here, the movie consists of three main components; tales that stems from the team and it’s travels, in-game action made even more interesting to the viewer as they now know the players as characters with their own specific qualities, and Dottie’s relationships with Kit and Jimmy.

The next major plot twist comes during one of the team’s bus journeys, during which Dottie and Jimmy talk about their personal lives. The main thrust of the conversation revolves around Dottie’s husband Bob, who is a combat soldier somewhere in Europe; Dottie thinks he is in Italy, but isn’t sure since she hasn’t heard from him in a while.

As Jimmy is coming to have respect for Dottie as both a player and a leader, her relationship with Kit takes a serious hit during the team’s next game. Toward the end of the game. Kit is pitching but it is clear she’s running out of gas. Jimmy and Dottie visit the mound at which point Jimmy asks Dottie what she would do. Dottie says Kit is done, and Jimmy takes her out of the game.

Meanwhile during this game, Harvey and Lowenstein are discussing the league’s future. Harvey tells Lowenstein since President Roosevelt has declared Major League would not be shut down, and since the war was going America’s way, he intends to shut down the AAGPBL after the season, stating “there is no room in this country for women’s baseball once the war is over.” Lowenstein vehemently disagrees and beseeches Harvey to let him take control of the league.

Not only is the future of the AAGPBL in doubt, the same can be said about the relationship between Kit and Dottie. An enraged Kit confronts Dottie to express her frustrations as she believes the world sees her as little more than Dottie’s inferior little sister. Afterward, Lowenstein encounters a lone Dottie in the team’s clubhouse. Dottie declares that she is finished with baseball because she can no longer tolerate Kit’s jealousy. In an attempt to keep Dottie…who has become the AAGPBL’s “star” player…Lowenstein offers Dottie the option of a trade.

While Dottie believes Lowenstein is going to trade her, she is once again confronted by an enraged Kit, who has been dealt to the rival Racine Belles. Dottie tells Kit that she asked to be traded. Kit scoffs at the notion, stating her belief that Dottie knew any such request would mean Kit would be the one to be traded…after all, why would the Rockford Peaches part with their star?

With Kit now gone, another twist slams into the plot. A Western Union delivery man appears at the Peaches’ clubhouse bearing news that one of the players’ husband has been killed action. Dottie is clearly impacted by this scene as she still has no idea as to the whereabouts of her husband. She is alone in her room crying when there is a knock on the door. The door opens to the sight of Bob (played by Bill Pullman) resplendent in his uniform and leaning on a cane.

Bob tells Dottie that he was shot by a sniper. Being reunited with her husband and in the wake ot her fight with Kit, Dottie tells Jimmy she is leaving the team to go back home with Bob. Jimmy doesn’t buy her reason for leaving; that playing had become “too hard.” Jimmy earnestly tells her that very few people will ever know what’s like to reach her level of skill, being “hard” is what makes baseball great, and that she will miss it and someday regret her decision.

Now, Jimmy finds himself managing the Rockford Peaches in the AAGPBL’s “World Series,” but without his star catcher and what was his best starting pitcher now toeing the slab for the opposing Racine Belles. But just as the winner-take-all Game 7 is about to begin, Dottie re-appears. Naturally, this sets the stage for a decisive showdown between Kit and Dottie (no spoilers here!)

Afterward, Dottie’s flashback concludes and the viewer is returned to the present day. As she walks across the field, the older versions of Doris (played by Vera Johnson) and Mae (played by Eunice Anderson) recognize her, and an it a call-back to their original meeting, Doris fires a baseball at Dottie, which she again catches bare-handed. After a series of reunions with the individual members of the Rockford Peaches, the entire group attends a ribbon-cutting ceremony is held in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum which debuting The Women in Baseball. As a group, the women decide that the honor of cutting the ribbon should go to the elderly Ira Lowenstein (played by Marvin Einhorn).

J-Dub’s Story:

If you are an American, even one who is not a sports fan, you speak the language of baseball. For some reason in my day, the dating world was chock full of euphemisms from the diamond. If you asked somebody for a date and got shot down…you “struck out.” Getting a kiss that was more than a quick peck was referred to as “getting to first base.” Following that logic, even the most challenged amongst us can deduce what “home run” represented.

The link in the lexicon of dating and baseball makes sense…after all, they are both full of gamesmanship. To quote the ABC classic Wide World of Sports, they both can bring the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Today’s tale is all about snatching thrill from the jaws of agony.

If you’ve even been on a date, odds are you’ve on a bad date…ergo…the source of agony. Picture a sports bar in Minnesota’s Monstrosity Mall of America somewhere in the mid-90s. The fact I’m even in that place doesn’t bode well considering how much I hated it. If you’ve ever been there, you can’t help but notice it even looks like Dante’s concentric rings of Hell…if Dante had ever envisioned a food court.

Anyway, at the time, the Monstrosity Mall was hot property on the suburban Minneapolis dating scene, particularly for 30-somethings like me at the time on the far cusp of their “clubbing” days. It really was “one-stop shopping” for first/second dates because it had everything…except a guarantee that the partner on said early date wouldn’t be a complete rain-out.

Let’s talk about one of the bitterest kinds of disappointment there are; that moment on a first date when the promise of a potential new romance curdles like expired milk. If you haven’t guessed by now, that’s exactly where today’s tale finds me; stuck in “date hell” in a place I can’t stand with a woman who in the span of a plate of appetizers went from desirable and alluring to the definition of vapid and boring. A conversation with this woman was like trying to tune in a radio station that’s just a smidge too far way, and even the rare-static-free moments only served to illustrate we weren’t receiving what each other was broadcasting.

Just about the time I’m looking to pull the rip cord and bail, an older gentleman strolls right behind my soon-to-be ex-date on his way to the bar. Clad in one of those satin 1990s-style baseball jackets and matching cap, I can’t help but think for some reason he looked familiar. While I’m not listening to whatever bilge with which What’s-her-face most assuredly bored the shit out of a long line of dates, I suddenly realize why I recognize the baseball-jacket-wearing stranger.

He was none other than baseball Hall-of-Famer Phil Niekro. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Niekro pitched 24 seasons in the Major Leagues, mostly with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves. Baseball fans in the know recognize Niekro as the unquestioned master of that voodoo known as the knuckleball. The diametric opposite of the straight, blazing fastball, the knuckler was a sputtering, fluttering wad of unpredictability and deception which very few pitchers ever mastered. Phil Niekro was the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the knuckleball; it allowed him to rack up 5,404 innings pitched; the most of any pitcher whose career was entirely in the “live ball” era. In those innings, Niekro also amassed 318 wins and 3,342 strikeouts…a testament to his master of the unhittable “knucksie.”

I don’t remember ditching What’s-her-face, much like I have no recollection of walking over to Mr. Niekro. I tuned back into the moment right as I approached him at the nearly empty bar and asked “Do I have to buy a Coors Light to sit here?”

Niekro glanced up from a beer of his own and through an emerging grin said “Couldn’t hurt.”

The joke was in the fact Niekro’s jacket and cap were the gear of the Colorado Silver Bullets, a barn-storming women’s professional baseball team for which he was the manager. Oh, did I mention the team was sponsored by Coors Light, hence the moniker “Silver Bullets?”

Founded in 1994 and lasting four seasons, the Colorado Silver Bullets were the first all-female professional baseball in the United States since the AAGPBL folded 1954.  Niekro was the “Jimmy Dugan,” of this team; he served as manager for all four seasons and was the “name” used to give the team gravitas.

The Silver Bullets were in town to play an exhibition game against the minor-league St. Paul Saints, and the team had just finished a public relations appearance at the Monstrosity Mall of America. Thus begins the classic scene of two guys in a bar bull-shitting over beers.

I avoided the obvious urge to throw the conversation straight into his baseball career. The introductory “Coors Light” joke made it known that I knew who he was, and what the Colorado Silver Bullets were all about. Besides, there was no fucking way I was going to be “that guy”…you know, the one who barfs a lot of bullshit like “tell me about the time you did blah blah blah… I’d rather pound a nail through my own tongue than be “that guy.”

Instead, for a solid three-plus innings, we were just two guys watching a ball game in a sports bar…except one of us would be enshrined in Cooperstown. In fact, it was the soon-to-be Hall of Famer who brought up his connection to major league baseball. Not only did I not expect that, I was completely surprised by how he did it. In retrospect, I should have known something sideways might come from the master of the unpredictable.

Glancing at my Minnesota Twins cap, he mumbled “You know, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me a question.”

I paused for a minute having been caught off guard. Holding up my Coors Light, I shot back with “I already did. That’s why I’m drinking this crap.”

“No, smart-ass,” Mr. Niekro chuckled. “I meant about baseball.”

My guess was he expected me to ask a question about him. So, I tossed a knuckler of my own.

“How long was your brother Joe doctoring baseballs?”

Unless you’re a Minnesota Twins fan of at least my age, you may not catch the reference. Phil’s younger brother was also a Major League pitcher. Joe pitched for the Minnesota Twins in 1987, when one night he was rather infamously caught on live television scuffing baseballs with a finger-nail file.

“Oh, hell…”Mr. Niekro sputtered, nearly losing the swallow of beer he had in his mouth. “Shit, man…everybody does something.”

Now, I really had a question. “Even you? Are you telling me you’re a real-life “Eddie Harris” from Major League?”

He didn’t a miss beat returning fire. “Yeah…except I never even heard of Vagisil.”

At this point, I want to make it clear that in the moment, I do not believe for a minute that Phil Niekro admitted to tampering with baseballs during his career. Besides that’s not the point. That’s all about my getting to bullshit with a Hall-of-Famer over a few beers. If you can say that, let’s hear your story.

Oh, here’s another thing I’d like to know. If anybody knows whatever happened to What’s-her-face, drop me a line. It could put a nice cap on this story.

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You can see all the episodes of “Story Time” here.

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