movie review of a league of their own

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A league of their own.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 22 Reviews
Kids Say 70 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

By Ellen MacKay , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Terrific story of women's baseball has great messages.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 10+?

Jimmy Dugan is frequently drunk; references to his being fired in the past for d

"S--t," "ass," "bitch," "bimbo," "goddamn," and "kiss my ass." The coach says t

Men admire the girls in their skimpy uniforms. "All the Way Mae" pursues dates a

The coach drinks a Coca-Cola.

A player incurs a large bruise after sliding into a base. Teammates fight, but n

Any Positive Content?

Women support women at a time before the value of female athletic talent was rou

The individual players work hard to play well and root for each other to succeed

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Jimmy Dugan is frequently drunk; references to his being fired in the past for drunken behavior. Players smoke cigarettes. Shy Marla belts out a tune on stage when her teammates give her alcohol.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

"S--t," "ass," "bitch," "bimbo," "goddamn," and "kiss my ass." The coach says that an ump looks like a "penis with a hat on."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Men admire the girls in their skimpy uniforms. "All the Way Mae" pursues dates and exploits her feminine charms. Some sexual references: "pickle tickle," comment about girls being better suited for sex than baseball, reference to "the clap." Shots of women in their underwear. A drunk coach urinates in front of the women (no nudity). Some sensual dancing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Violence & scariness.

A player incurs a large bruise after sliding into a base. Teammates fight, but no one is injured. The war's effect on the home front leads to some tense moments.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Women support women at a time before the value of female athletic talent was routinely recognized and appreciated. The league isn't integrated, and in one scene we see that there are women of color who would have been excellent ball players. Major themes include compassion and teamwork.

Positive Role Models

The individual players work hard to play well and root for each other to succeed. A married player stays away from nightlife because she's faithful to her husband, who is fighting abroad. The coach, who disdains coaching women, starts out drunk but gradually shapes up as he comes to admire, respect, and help the women on his team.

Parents need to know that A League of Their Own is a warmhearted tale of camaraderie based on the real-life 1940s All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Starring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks , it has strong messages of teamwork, compassion, and "girl power" and offers relatable female characters who throw fastballs right through the gender stereotypes of their day. Expect some innuendo and sex talk ( Madonna 's character is referred to as "All the Way Mae") and some swearing ("s--t," "penis with a hat on"), drinking (Hanks' character is often drunk), and smoking. Men admire the women in their skimpy uniforms. Sexual references include the phrase "pickle tickle," a comment about women being better suited for sex than baseball, and a reference to "the clap." There are shots of women in their (substantial) underwear, a drunk coach urinates in front of the women (no nudity), and there's some sensual dancing. There's also some wartime sadness/stress, but ultimately this is a great story for tweens and up. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (22)
Kids say (70)

Based on 22 parent reviews

Great story, but too much sex talk for my kids

Opens the door to discussions about sexism, then and now, what's the story.

Set in the 1940s, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN focuses on the exceptional circumstances surrounding the All-American Girls League. As in most baseball movies, the film follows the skills and friendships that develop among the Peaches, but in this case viewers also learn of the unique difficulties for a women's league in the midst of pre-feminist America. With guidance from their somewhat unstable and reluctant manager ( Tom Hanks ), Dottie ( Geena Davis ), Kit (Lori Petty), Doris ( Rosie O'Donnell ), Mae ( Madonna ), Marla (Megan Cavanagh), and the rest of the team face tough training sessions, mocking spectators, and other challenges as they try to win fans and beat opposing teams at a time when women were supposed to look pretty and bake cakes. And just when they achieve success on the playing field, the war ends, the male baseball players return home to the U.S., and the Peaches are abruptly abandoned by management and fans alike.

Is It Any Good?

Everyone loves a good story about the teamwork and triumph at the heart of America's favorite pastime, and this film adds the twist of women struggling to prove themselves as athletes in the 1940s. There are many funny and poignant moments, and the Peaches are an interesting bunch from various backgrounds (including Rosie O'Donnell as an outspoken former bouncer and Madonna as a sultry taxi dancer). Tom Hanks is hilarious as manager Jimmy Dugan, and this is some of the richest character work he's done to date.

Tweens will probably enjoy A League of Their Own , though they may lose interest during the maudlin epilogue that's set 40 years later, when the AAGPBL is finally recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about women's role (or lack thereof) in most professional sports -- and their role in A League of Their Own . Do you think women could compete equally on men's teams? Why or why not?

To keep the game popular with fans, the players flaunted their femininity. Do you think this was all in good fun, a sign of the times, or somewhat demeaning?

How do the characters in A League of Their Own demonstrate compassion and teamwork ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Which characters are role models ? Why?

Why are underdog movies so popular? Name some other movies that feature losing teams that learn to work together and succeed. What qualities allow underdogs to win?

Movie Details

In theaters : July 1, 1992
On DVD or streaming : June 4, 2002
Cast : Geena Davis , Madonna , Tom Hanks
Director : Penny Marshall
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Columbia Tristar
Genre : Comedy
Topics : Sports and Martial Arts , History
Character Strengths : Compassion , Teamwork
Run time : 124 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : some mild profanity
Last updated : August 13, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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Penny Marshall's ‘A League of Their Own’ Review: A Heartfelt Home Run

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Even if you haven’t seen A League of Their Own , you’ve likely heard Tom Hanks crankily bark those famous few words: “There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball!” That line, though instrumental to the sports classic and rightfully iconic, casts a sillier shadow over a film that’s steeped in heart, history, and hope. It’s far more than a sports movie. It’s a powerful story about the fragility of life, serving as a playful reminder to take risks and appreciate the people in your corner.

Penny Marshall , a household name thanks to her work as an actor in a trio of television juggernauts known as Happy Days , The Odd Couple , and Laverne & Shirley , seamlessly brings her keen eye for storytelling to the director’s chair. One of the reasons why Marshall was a shoo-in to direct the beautiful movie is because of her impressive ability to take on both comedy and drama. A few years earlier, she directed Hanks in the whimsical comedy Big and then Robert De Niro and Robin Williams in the medical drama Awakenings , both of which were nominated for Oscars.

RELATED: Cinespia Announces August Lineup Including 'A League of Their Own' Anniversary Screening

At the core of A League of Their Own is the close but damaged relationship between Dottie ( Geena Davis ) and Kit ( Lori Petty ), two sisters living in 1943 Oregon who work at a dairy farm and happen to be damn good at playing baseball. They love the sport equally, but have different aspirations. Dottie, an expert catcher and all-around ballplayer, seems to have it all. She’s beautiful, composed, and hopeful that her husband will return safe from the war so they can start a family. Kit, on the other hand, wants to make a name for herself somewhere and is constantly being reminded of how she pales in comparison to her sister. She’s a sucker for the “high-ones” that come sailing over the plate (which she more often than not misses) and is often bailed out by Dottie, the superior player. Dottie always tries to build Kit up, but Kit never lets her. Instead, Dottie patiently listens to her little sister lament about her blunders and what hecklers said to her after the game: “Kit, why don’t you get your sister to teach you to hit?”

While Kit and Dottie milk cows, they get an unexpected visit from Ernie Capadino ( Jon Lovitz ), a persnickety baseball scout looking to recruit players for the upcoming experiment known as the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. At this time, the country is smack-dab in the middle of World War II, and all the Major League Baseball players are being whisked off to fight on the front lines. No players means no baseball, which to investors, means no money. In an effort to keep the game going and people’s pockets full, Ira Lowenstein (the promotional expert to Walter Harvey, the league’s founder in the film) is tasked with figuring out how to keep the sport alive. Scouts are sent out across the country to search for the best—and prettiest—female players who could form a league of their own. If Dottie was willing to try out in Chicago, then heck, Kit could come along, too.

As is the case with most films where the cast fits like a glove (caution: baseball puns are here to stay), it’s hard to imagine anyone else in their respective roles. Geena Davis and Lori Petty’s chemistry as sisters is undeniable. ( Debra Winger and Demi Moore were both options for the role of Dottie.) Davis carries Dottie’s maturity and complexity with ease, while Petty humorously leans into Kit’s childlike frustrations and tiny tantrums. The sisters unsurprisingly make the league and join the Rockford Peaches alongside a bevy of lovable characters. Pop star Madonna nailed the role of Mae “All the Way” Mordabito, a flirtatious center fielder who always has her eyes on the male fanbase, and her tough, unfiltered friend Doris Murphy is smartly played by Rosie O’Donnell . Megan Cavanagh shines as the homely and painfully shy second baseman Marla Hooch, who has one of the most satisfying character arcs in the film.

Leading the team (well, “leading” is quite generous) is Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan, a jaded former baseball player who is simply taking this manager position for the booze money. While Dugan might be phoning it in, Hanks’ performance could not be more impressive. The scene when he first greets his team by drunkenly stumbling through their locker room to relieve himself for a deeply troubling amount of time is unrivaled. He’s sure to cushion this persistent brash behavior (hocking tobacco and failing to learn anyone’s name) with moments of sincere affection and gratitude, resulting in a character we not only root for, but deeply care for. I think this Hanks fella is going places.

As the men were fighting Hitler on the battlefield, the women were fighting misogyny on the home front. To many, women having a league of their own was a truly baffling concept, and the movie creatively and effectively addresses the genuine panic that permeated the era. If women left the kitchen, how was society supposed to function? Who would raise the children? Could women— gasp —lose their femininity? Not only does A League of Their Own put an entertaining and educational spin on a narrow-minded chapter of our country’s history, it is sure to emphasize the positives that came from it as well. Getting “dirt in the skirt” (sliding into the base) was seen as a badge of honor. Husbands proudly yelled “that's my wife!” when their spouse had a particularly impressive moment on the field. Instead of shouting about a beautiful “Diamond Gal,” people were shouting about a beautiful catch one of them made. In other words, being told you “threw like a girl” was officially a compliment.

The Rockford Peaches from A League of Their Own (1992)

There are many delightful subtleties and details that contribute to the film’s big heart, but what’s especially powerful is the way the story is executed. The movie is book-ended by Dottie’s present-day life in 1988, roughly 40 years after her glory days behind home plate. Before we travel back to the 1940s where the majority of the film takes place, we meet the much-older Dottie, who’s on the fence about whether or not she should attend a team reunion. Carole King ’s “Now and Forever” that plays in the beginning indicates that the team surely meant a lot to Dottie, even though she was apprehensive to attend the event. But the fade to flashback for the bulk of the film is a bold decision with an enormous payoff. It strategically creates a more immersive experience for the audience and turns the final scene at the Baseball Hall of Fame—where we see the Peaches past their prime reunite all these years later—into an emotional gut-punch.

A League of Their Own will stay with you long after Madonna’s “This Used to Be My Playground” aptly plays over the credits. Aside from making you wonder if a certain someone intentionally dropped that ball in Game 7 of the World Series, it’ll remind you to relish each fleeting moment and appreciate those who appreciate you. There may be no crying in baseball, but this picture is sure to leave you in tears.

Movie Features

Classic Review: A League of Their Own (1992)

Overall Score

Rating summary.

A League of Their Own is one of the best sports movies ever made. It just is. Marshall manages to create a perfect “little”film, one that ended up making $107 million at the US box office, a magnificent feat in 1992. Terminator 2 , a much bigger, more expensive and ambitious film made $204 million one year prior. She puts together a film that is exciting as any sports movie should be, but with plenty of humor and a heart. It’s impossible not to shed some tears by the end of the run.

A League of Their Own follows Dottie (Davis) and Kit (Petty), two sisters from Oregon who are invited to participate in the first women baseball league in the 1940’s, temporarily replacing the men who were fighting World War II. They go to Chicago and Dottie becomes the star of the league, making Kit jealous and more insecure about her own abilities. Their team is trained by Jimmy (Hanks) a former player who drinks more than he should and hates coaching a female team. This new league would prove unpopular at first but in time its popularity grew thus driving Dottie and Kit further apart.

That happens because the script brings a lot to the table as the entire team managed to successfully translate the words on screen. It’s interesting to analyze how the script has so many little details, so many insights that only enhance our experience. In a way, A League of Their Own is very lighthearted and joyful, and because of that we might not realize how it so exquisitely it brings more serious material to the story.

With A League of Their Own , you have a great love-hate relationship between two sisters. Dottie is the star, not only in the league but also back home. She was always the example, the perfect daughter, the perfect woman. And now she is the perfect baseball player. Standing in her shadow is no easy feat and it would be hard to anyone to try and match that. Kit’s angst and conflicting nature is totally relatable to us, we understand exactly how she feels, especially because Petty does a fantastic job in turning Kit into a complex human being. Sometimes Kit comes off as a little annoying, but Petty shows so much vulnerability to her character she always brings us back to her corner.

Dottie only goes to the league because her husband in fighting the war. She would never go down that road if he was home, and she makes it very clear from the start that she’ll go back to him as soon as he comes home. So Dottie is perfectly happy with just being the wife? Maybe. Or maybe not. The brilliance of Dottie is that Davis gives her an air of mystery, we never know all that is going through her head. She shares only what she wants, but there’s a part of Dottie we’ll never know unless she wants to share it (and she doesn’t). SPOILER ALERT: That’s why her dropping the ball in the end of the last game is such a winning moment. We will never know if she did it on purpose or not, and that happens because the character was constructed in such a way that both options are totally plausible.

Dottie is very strong willed and centered, at that time, meant for her going back to just being the wife. But there are glimpses in the performance that shows us that although Dottie is sure of her choice, she also knows she would be happy in the league. The best part of this was how Davis doesn’t play her as a victim; Dottie is doing exactly what she wants to do, she doesn’t care what any of us think about her choice or if we think it’s the wrong one. It’s her choice to make, her decision, and no one else. She’s very aware of what’s at stake and she makes her decision accordingly. Dottie also has a very soft side, and it constantly shows during the run of the film, especially in her scenes with sister Kit. She’s quite a well-drawn character.

Then there’s Jimmy, a talented player who lost everything because of his alcoholism, and he needs to find his feet again training the women. In the beginning he’s very blunt of his disdain of it all but he manages to pull himself up and become a true leader to that group. He lost his career and his dream because of his drinking, and he’ll never be able to relive those moments. But he can try to give his team those same happy moments he once had. He who started as a disgusting pig in the beginning, manages to become a more centered character during the run of the film. Those relationships changed him for the better.

A League of Their Own is a comedy, but it also dealt with World War II. Once the audiences becomes totally immersed in the fun of the game, the story brings us back to its premise: why these women are doing what they are doing. In a perfectly constructed scene, an emissary brings a telegram with the condolences of the lost husband of one of the players. It’s a chilling moment, one that turns the mood of the film very quickly. In one moment, we are completely relaxed watching the game and as soon as we understand what’s happening it’s like we are sinking in freezing waters. It’s such a powerful moment.

Another one might be the highlight of A League of Their Own : in a very quick scene, an African American woman picks up a ball and throws it back at Dottie. Her pitch is so strong Dottie congratulates her and the woman leaves. It’s a small scene, and the most amazing part of it is that it is it almost underplays what it is saying while making it very clear: that although a female league is an advancement, there is still a lot of work to be done.

Most of the female characters in the team enrich A League of Their Own’s story, they reflect on the little choices women had at that time, and how heavily judged they were for every single choice they made. Even little angel Stilwell makes a clear point: why can’t his father take care of him while his mother works? Again, every line, every little moment in the script enhances the broader picture of how life for women at that time was, and the film ends up making a very strong statement.

But what makes A League of Their Own so great it that it manages to bring up so many hard subjects while remaining constantly funny all the way to the end. There are A LOT of hilarious moments and dialogues, a lot of them courtesy of Hanks, who created such a compelling character to watch. He doesn’t waste one line, not a single opportunity to makes us crack. His looks, his lines, the way he moves his body, it’s all highly amusing.

Another memorable character was Rosie O’Donnell as Doris Murphy, one the team’s players: she grabs all the opportunities she has and doesn’t waste a single one of them to make the most of it and we can’t help but laugh our asses off. She even gets a bonus point for having such a great chemistry with Madonna here as Mae Mordabito. The entire cast is great, but there is one character that needs to be pointed out: Marla, played by Megan Cavanagh, such a fun character to watch. She starts as a one note joke but very soon in the script she’s given more and more, and we fall in love with her, while we laugh hysterically at the same time.

In the end, Marshall creates such a beautifully tailored story, she established such an emotional connection between us and her characters, it is impossible not to shed some tears in the most emotional scenes. When the film ends, we are very proud of these women, even though they are not even real. How fantastic is that?

A League of Their Own is a wonderful little masterpiece. What a delicious film.

*still courtesy of IMDb*

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A League of Their Own Reviews

Heartwarming and light, A League of their Own is a fun and charming baseball classic. Geena Davis and Tom Hanks are delightful. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 15, 2024

A fictional take on a real story, but full of heart and lovely moments

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2023

Though Penny Marshall did take a risk making this film about women’s professional baseball she did not, however, take any risks when telling the story. It is your typical sports film with some conflict and then heroism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 17, 2022

Very much a film about sisterhood and resistance and being the best you can be.

Full Review | Aug 31, 2022

Obviously a good movie, crowd-pleasing and incredibly thoughtful. We need more movies where Tom Hanks is just a wily supporting character spittin’ tobacco and yelling at people like a fool.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2022

A warmhearted comedy and a classic baseball movie.

Full Review | Jul 9, 2022

It’s a great piece of Hollywood confectionery, and you might well find yourself choking up a little at the end.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 9, 2022

A League Of Their Own is my favourite kind of mid-century jaunt because it resurrects a since-forgotten bit of history and crafts a compelling narrative to go along with it.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2021

With this tribute to the real-life All American Girls Professional Baseball League (1942-1954), director Penny Marshall confirms what some of us have suspected all along -- that she can play hardball in Hollywood's big leagues.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 17, 2021

Has there ever been a more crowd-pleasing crowdpleaser than Penny Marshall's dramatization of America's first women's baseball league? No, there has not.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2021

...a comfortable, promising setup that's employed to pervasively watchable effect...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2021

The film is an easygoing, fun time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 13, 2020

A League of Their Own is a beloved comedy which not only celebrates women in baseball but continues to serve as an inspiration to women today.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 7, 2020

Director Penny Marshall once again proves herself to possess both a deft hand for light comedy and an unfortunate weakness for sentimentality.

Full Review | Feb 7, 2020

Then comes the ending. Or rather endings, for in common with many Hollywood scripts. A League of Their Own mercilessly drags its heels.

Under Penny Marshall's spirited, warm direction, the players shine.

Full Review | Jul 1, 2019

Hardly a perfect film, League nonetheless represents a breakthrough in women's sports movies: It's a celebration of sport for sport's sake.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | May 30, 2019

It is gentle, weepy and mostly inoffensive, with an ending which celebrates old people.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2018

If you isolate the performances and compare them to baseball cards, there isn't a dud destined to be traded or clipped to the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jan 16, 2018

A League of Their Own is a bright idea that turns into a pile of mush.

Full Review | Jan 4, 2018

Cast & crew
User reviews

A League of Their Own

During World War II, sisters Dottie and Kit join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amid their own growing rivalry. During World War II, sisters Dottie and Kit join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amid their own growing rivalry. During World War II, sisters Dottie and Kit join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amid their own growing rivalry.

Penny Marshall
Kelly Candaele
Lowell Ganz
Geena Davis
361 User reviews
64 Critic reviews
69 Metascore
6 wins & 13 nominations

Top cast 97

Jimmy Dugan

Dottie Hinson - Catcher

Kit Keller - Pitcher

Mae Mordabito - Center Fielder

Doris Murphy - Third Base

Marla Hooch - Second Base

Betty Horn - Left Fielder-Pitcher

Evelyn Gardner - Right Fielder

Shirley Baker - Left Fielder

Helen Haley - First Base
(as Anne Elizabeth Ramsay)

Ellen Sue Gotlander - Shortstop-Pitcher

(as Renee Coleman)
'Beans' Babbitt - Shortstop

Marbleann Wilkenson - Second Base

Beverly Dixon - Outfielder
Neezer Dalton - Outfielder
Connie Calhoun - Outfielder

'Mumbles' Brockman - Outfielder
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia During filming of the World Series games, stars took turns entertaining the unpaid extras. Tom Hanks did puppet shows over the dugout, Rosie O'Donnell did stand-up comedy; and various actors pretended to be Madonna and sang her songs after the singer balked at performing for the fans.
Goofs The end of the film notes that the players of the AAGPBL were "the first women ever to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame." Actually, they are not inductees. Rather, they were recognized with a permanent exhibit in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, entitled "Women in Baseball," in 1988. The first woman to actually be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame was Effa Manley, the co-owner (with her husband, Abe) of the Newark Eagles. She was inducted in 2006.

Jimmy Dugan : Taking a little day trip?

Dottie Hinson : No, Bob and I are driving home. To Oregon.

Jimmy Dugan : [long pause] You know, I really thought you were a ballplayer.

Dottie Hinson : Well, you were wrong.

Jimmy Dugan : Was I?

Dottie Hinson : Yeah. It is only a game, Jimmy. It's only a game, and, and, I don't need this. I have Bob; I don't need this. At all.

Jimmy Dugan : I, I gave away five years at the end my career, drinking. Five years. And now there isn't anything I wouldn't give to get back any one day of it.

Dottie Hinson : Well, we're different.

Jimmy Dugan : This is chickenshit, Dottie, if you want to go back to Oregon and make a hundred babies, great, I'm in no position to tell anyone how to live. But sneaking out like this, quitting, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It's what lights you up, you can't deny that.

Dottie Hinson : It just got too hard.

Jimmy Dugan : It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great.

Crazy credits Shots of the real AAGPBL old-timers playing baseball.
Alternate versions Paramount Network broadcasts in the US speed up at the audio at only 2%.
Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Batman Returns/Cold Heaven/Housesitter/Cousin Bobby/The Hairdresser's Husband (1992)
Soundtracks This Used to Be My Playground Written and Produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone Performed by Madonna Courtesy of Sire Records

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 8 minutes

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A League of Their Own Review

01 Jan 1992

124 minutes

A League of Their Own

A quick glance at the line-up suggests what one might expect from this comedy of baseball bonding bosom buddies. Re-teaming director Penny Marshall with Big star Tom Hanks, and with a screenplay by City Slickers and Parenthood writers Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, the agenda here is clearly along the lines of good-natured vignettes, smart one-liners and a healthy dose of heartstring tugging.

And, of course, it's not really about baseball at all, being in its way a kind of Pretty Slickers about sharing fellowship, jolly repartee and a few heartaches in the context of a liberating physical challenge. It's the tale of the formation of a women's professional league during World War II, when the armed forces picked the pro teams clean, and baseball's desperate bosses looked to the farms and factories for females who could play hard ball and flash their pins for the thrill-hungry fans.

Hanks, in another gem of a comic performance, is the drunken has-been with disgusting personal habits, reluctantly coaching the Rockford Peaches from a horizontal position until their abilities startle him into animation. Meanwhile, taking the field with robust assurance, is the perfectly peachy Geena Davis as farmer's wife and formidable batter Dottie. Madonna - not too stretched as team slut "All The Way" Mae - is shown off in a jitterbug number, while more screen time is given to the sibling relationship between Davis's Dottie and Lori Petty as her overshadowed sister, the erratic pitcher Kit.

It's a mostly winning combination of sassy humour and sentiment, enlivened by some fun "newsreel" recreations that catch the period flavour of a sport adopting showbiz tactics - flirty-skirted uniforms, cheesecake stunts and skin-scraping do-or-die game plays - to attract the crowds.

And, even more refreshingly, this doesn't always take the obvious route - apart from a few overly sombre moments, like the arrival of the inevitable War Office telegram in the locker room. The cast do passable impressions of useful athletes with few indiscreet long shots of actual play to shatter the illusion, and more often than not, to quote Saturday Night Live stalwart Jon Lovitz's odious scout Gappy, "Ladies, it's been a thin slice of heaven."

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Review: ‘A League of Their Own’ Broadens the Field

A new version of the women’s baseball tale, best known from the 1992 movie, incorporates stories about queer identity and race.

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By Margaret Lyons

A subset of TV’s seemingly endless crop of reboots adapt well-known properties from yesteryear but with more thoughtful or thorough approaches to race or gender, or both. The 1960s are different when “The Wonder Years” centers on a Black family. There’s more to gossip about on “Gossip Girl” without the rigid do-si-do of a gender binary.

Similarly, a new version of “A League of Their Own” swings at ideas about queer identity and spaces, about race, and about Blackness in particular. But it can’t get its bat around fast enough to connect.

This “League,” available now, on Amazon, has the same setting as Penny Marshall’s near-perfect 1992 movie: It’s 1943, and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League is debuting as World War II wears on and Major League Baseball’s labor pool continues to shrink.

The show splits its time between the nascent Rockford Peaches and Max (Chanté Adams), an ambitious pitcher excluded from the league because she’s Black. Both halves of the narrative wind through queer spaces and various character awakenings but only with a well-meaning mildness that feels like preamble rather than actual story.

As in the movie, which centered on Geena Davis’s Dottie, these Peaches find their anchor in a catcher: Carson Shaw, played by Abbi Jacobson, who created the series with Will Graham. We’re led to believe she is an excellent player, though we see so little meaningful on-field action that it hardly matters. Carson’s real story is the budding romance between her and her chic teammate, Greta (D’Arcy Carden, outacting almost everyone else).

Indeed, most of the Peaches we spend time with are queer, sneaking off to clandestine nightclubs, following strict rules to hide their sexuality from the violence of society and bristling at the league-enforced version of femininity. Max, too, tries to find her place among her gay and transgender elders, and she and Carson develop a passing but honest friendship.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, a league of their own updates beloved story with fun spirit.

Remaking a classic can be hard. Replicating the original magic is not as simple as recombining parts, and the task is often trickier when trying to turn a movie into a TV show; it's easy for stories to become bloated from all those additional minutes, plotlines, and characters. But Prime Video’s new “ A League of Their Own ” is a winning remake, one that updates the 30-year-old original in all the right ways while cherishing the favorite touch-points of the original.

Our protagonist is still the catcher, arguably the least lady-like position (which matters in its 1940s setting) with her face hidden behind the mask, body covered in pads, stuck in a squat. Back in 1992 , Geena Davis crouched behind the plate as Dottie Hinson. In the eight-part series co-created by Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham , Jacobson plays the lead and renames her Carson Shaw. Carson is different than Dottie in many ways but they both play on the same team—the Peaches—wear the same uniform (the pink and red skirt suit will surely be a favorite for Halloween this year), and have to deal with an absent-to-grumpy manager (although Nick Offerman cannot compete with Tom Hanks ’ famous performance).

There are even some of the same scenes—think the untidy ballplayers undergoing makeovers to better attract their perceived male fans. With their make-up on and hair done, they appeal better to the male gaze if uneasily and only for a time. And while the original rejected this ideal as sexist, the new version goes further in critiquing the systems our ballplayers find themselves in and is much more satisfying as a result.

As the series goes on, the warm and comforting notes pulled from the original mostly fade away as this version of the Peaches becomes real and their concerns pressing (although a late-season utterance of “ there’s no crying in baseball ” momentarily brings them back). The show pulls off this trick in part by making the baseball itself compelling—the familiar sports arc of an underdog team beating expectations is as satisfying as ever. And without spoiling it, let’s just say the final at-bat is a perfect conclusion to the eight or so hours before it.

So yes, “A League of Their Own” works as a plot-driven baseball story but it gets really interesting in how it addresses so many of the problems of the original. For one, Jacobson and Graham add a Black baseball player Max Chapman (played masterfully by Chanté Adams ), who the league’s owners deny the opportunity to try out because of her race. Now, one Black character tacked on could do more harm than good, especially if she’s overly simplistic or used to make the white characters feel or look better.

Thankfully, Max has her own complete world outside of the Peaches, populated with complex, compelling Black characters. Their differences and numbers defy stereotypes, particularly in how the show portrays Max’s relationships with the women in her life, like her best friend Clance Morgan (the effervescent Gbemisola Ikumelo ) and mother Toni (the formidable Saidah Arrika Ekulona ). Max’s plotline is also interesting when the Peaches and the two interact. The show is careful not to let Shaw, in particular, off the hook for her complicity in a racist system that benefits her.

Further complicating the show’s racial politics, the Peaches have two Latinas on the team: pitcher Lupe Garcia ( Roberta Colindrez ) and Esti González ( Priscilla Delgado ). As fair-skinned women, they have much more freedom and privileges than Max and her Black counterparts, but still find themselves stuck in a racist system.

It’s all very smart and well done, and then Jacobson and Graham lay in their biggest update to the original: unapologetically highlighting lesbian stories. 1992’s “A League of Their Own” hinted at lesbian sexuality but the film’s top takeaway on the matter was “playing baseball as a woman doesn’t make you gay.” Here the message is more “there’s nothing wrong with being gay and the laws, structures, and culture that say otherwise are monstrous.”

In this version, we have gay romances to root for with sexy scenes, gay joy, and full, gay personhood. There’s also an examination of the laws and isolation LGBTQ people faced in the 1940s, including a scene depicting state violence. The networks of support—from friends to family members to underground safe spaces—are more nuanced than typically portrayed, and while bigots certainly exist in this fictional world, they are largely given the chance to grow and learn.

The result is a show that is more fun than the original. This “A League of Their Own” is able to explore and laugh with more of its characters, find their depth, celebrate their new-found freedoms, and cast an unflinching gaze on the ways their society still held them back—not just as women, but also as lesbian or bi people, Black women, and Latinas. As such, the 2022 “A League of Their Own” is so much better at telling the tale of this moment in women’s history, finding the real joy that only comes when not shying away from injustice.

Whole season screened for review. Premieres Friday, August 12th.

Cristina Escobar

Cristina Escobar is the co-founder of LatinaMedia.Co, a digital publication uplifting Latina and gender non-conforming Latinx perspectives in media.

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A League of Their Own review: A worthwhile reimagining

If a TV show is going to retell and stretch out the story of a classic film, then it is incumbent upon said series to justify its own existence. It can’t just tell the same story again in an entertaining way. In order to be successful, the series has to bring something new to the table — a new angle, perspective, or subversion that makes it feel like it is building upon what came before it rather than simply retreading familiar ground.

That’s especially true when the film you’re remaking is A League of Their Own . Director Penny Marshall’s beloved 1992 classic is not only one of the most quoted movies of all time. but also one of the most beloved and charming comedies of the 1990s. In case that wasn’t enough, the film’s cast isn’t just headlined by two charming and charismatic lead performances from Geena Davis and Tom Hanks, but it also boasts an impressive array of supporting performances from the likes of Lori Petty, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna, Bill Pullman, Ann Cusack, Jon Lovitz, and David Straithairn.

All of which is to say that the film deserves its classic status. For that reason, it’s probably a good thing that Amazon’s new reimagining of A League of Their Own has very little in common with Marshall’s 1992 film. While both titles rely on the same premise and even feature similar characters, 2022’s A League of Their Own isn’t very concerned with being a feminist screwball comedy in the same vein as its predecessor. Instead, the new series is more interested in matters of sexuality and race — two issues that Marshall’s film notably avoids.

Created by Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham, Amazon’s A League of Their Own focuses on the lives of the women who travel from across the country in 1943 to join the Rockford Peaches, one of the teams in the budding All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. When the series begins, the league has been formed in an attempt to try to bolster American patriotism during the trying times of World War II, but for many of the women who want to join it, including an unassuming country girl named Carson Shaw (Jacobson), it’s seen more as a chance for them to live the kind of lives they’ve always wanted.

In specific, it isn’t long before Carson finds herself growing increasingly attracted to one of her fellow teammates, Greta (D’Arcy Carden). In fact, by the time A League of Their Own ’s pilot episode has come to an end, the unspoken queer subtext that is subtly present in Marshall’s 1992 film has been made refreshingly explicit. From that point on, the series becomes increasingly less interested in the competition at the center of the Peaches’ baseball season and more in the freedom that being professional ballplayers affords the team’s members. On the road, the team’s many gay and queer players are able to find the time and privacy that they need in order to express themselves.

But A League of Their Own ’s focus isn’t just on exploring the diverse sexualities of the Rockford Peaches’ team members. The series also builds off a small moment from Marshall’s film in which a Black female spectator makes a memorable throw by spotlighting Max (Chanté Adams), a young Black woman who dreams of stepping out of her salon owner mother’s shadow by becoming a professional baseball pitcher. Over the course of the show’s first eight episodes, Max’s quest to do so becomes just as important of a storyline in A League of Their Own as the Peaches’ debut season.

By centering itself around both Max’s storyline and the secret queer lives of the Peaches’ team members, A League of Their Own is able to expand the scope of its 1992 predecessor by not only exploring the sexism that women faced in the 1940s, but also the discrimination that Black and queer women did as well. On the one hand, its increased interest in injustice results in A League of Their Own often falling short of the comedic highs of its predecessor. On the other hand, the series also frequently achieves a kind of emotional introspection and catharsis that 1992’s A League of Their Own never quite does.

Unfortunately, not all of the show’s storylines prove to be as compelling as others. Despite being two of the series’ leads, the romance between Carden’s Greta and Jacobson’s Carson often feels more one-note and contrived than many of the show’s other subplots. Fortunately, the series does a far better job with Max’s story than it does with Greta and Carson’s. Part of that can be attributed to the delicate touch that Graham, Jacobson, and company bring to Max’s complicated journey toward self-fulfillment, but credit must also be given to Adams, who turns in one of the year’s breakout performances as Max. Opposite her, Gbemisola Ikumelo also shines as Clance, Max’s married, comic book-obsessed best friend.

As Clance, Ikumelo is not only likable and charismatic, but she also produces many of the series’ biggest laughs and quickly emerges as A League of Their Own ’s secret clutch hitter. The same cannot be said, however, for Nick Offerman, who turns in a reliably cranky performance as Dove Porter, the show’s darker and less humorous stand-in for Jimmy Dugan, Tom Hanks’ irritable coach from Marshall’s 1992 film. Dove, like many of the Amazon show’s male characters, falls flat, and Offerman’s presence in the series is surprisingly limited.

Ultimately, the biggest knock one can make against Amazon’s A League of Their Own is that it just isn’t very funny. That’s undeniably odd considering how memorable so many of the laughs are in Marshall’s original film. The new series’ various homages to its predecessor often miss the mark as well, including one callback to the 1992 movie’s most-quoted moment that doesn’t come close to matching the same screwball charm of the original scene.

However, it’s a testament to everything that Jacobson, Graham, and their collaborators get right with their version of A League of Their Own that it ends up achieving something that very few of Hollywood’s more recent reboots and remakes have. For all its faults, it’s a reimagining that, at the very least, actually feels necessary.

All eight episodes of A League of Their Own premiere Friday, August 12, on Amazon Prime Video. Digital Trends was given access to the show’s entire first season.

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‘A League of Their Own’: There’s Still No Crying in Baseball — Just Room for Fixing Old Errors

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

A League of Their Own is a pretty darn perfect movie. The Penny Marshall-directed film from 1992, about the women recruited to play professional baseball while so many men were off fighting World War II, is a crackerjack sports movie, a winning ensemble comedy, and a well-hit drama about female empowerment in an era when the concept seemed utterly foreign. It’s got all-star performances by Geena Davis, Tom Hanks (it’s the role that kicked off his Hall of Fame run in the Nineties), Madonna (never better as an actor), and more. 10 out of 10. No notes.

Amazon’s new A League of Their Own TV series has many notes. It is, on the one hand, clearly adoring of the movie, frequently quoting various lines, images, and scenes from it 30 years later. And on the other hand, it is an attempt to cover many subjects — particularly regarding race and sexuality — that the movie didn’t, or in some cases couldn’t.

This new League (*) is interesting and fun in many ways, with a strong cast highlighted by D’Arcy Carden from The Good Place . But in attempting to improve on perfection — or, at least, to point out the imperfections of the mainstream movie studio comedy system of the early Nineties — the show reveals some large flaws of its own.

(*) This is actually the second TV version. In 1993, CBS briefly aired a sitcom (full episodes are on YouTube ) that was a more straightforward adaptation, with Carey Lowell in the Geena Davis role, Sam McMurray replacing Hanks, and a few holdovers from the movie’s cast.

Created by Broad City star Abbi Jacobson and Mozart in the Jungle writer Will Graham, the series opens in 1943. The men have been off to war for more than a year, and Carson (Jacobson) is leaving small-town Idaho to try out for a new women’s baseball league. Like Davis’ Dottie Hinson, Carson is a power-hitting catcher with a husband serving in the military overseas, and even runs to catch a train in the opening minutes like Dottie and her sister Kit do in the movie. The similarities end there, though. Dottie loved to play but ultimately viewed baseball as an adventure to enjoy until her husband could return to resume their real life together. Carson sees it as a means of escape from a life that increasingly feels wrong to her as she realizes that she’s queer.

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At tryouts, she befriends the glamorous and magnetic Greta (Carden) and her rough-and-tumble pal Jo (Melanie Field), and is impressed by the rifle arm of Max (Chanté Adams), who is barred from the league because she’s Black and baseball won’t be integrated for another four years. The movie features a memorable but brief scene where a Black woman watching a Rockford Peaches game demonstrates similar talent — Marshall and company’s way of acknowledging that Black players were unfairly left out of this, but not considering the injustice any more deeply than that. The show, on the other hand, splits itself into parallel narratives: Carson and other Peaches going through various personal struggles over the course of their rookie season, and Max trying to find a place for herself in a world that’s prejudiced against several fundamental aspects of her existence.

The two stories periodically intersect as Carson and Max become friends and meet late at night to play catch(*) and offer each other advice. Thematically, the split structure makes sense, as both narrative strands feature characters — many of them LGBTQ+ — butting up against the restrictions of a white, heteronormative patriarchy.

(*) This sets up an odd running gag about another classic baseball movie, regarding the phrase “have a catch” from Field of Dreams .

In practical terms, though, Jacobson and Graham struggle to balance the needs of each half. In one-fourth of the time that the show’s first season uses, the movie gives a much stronger sense of the ebbs and flows of the Peaches’ season, even as it gave many of the characters some interesting arcs. Here, the baseball can at times feel like an afterthought, or at least rushed. Nick Offerman turns up for a few episodes as the team manager Dove, a very different sort from Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan, and just as the show is figuring out Dove’s relationship to his players, he vanishes for a long stretch, leaving the women to coach themselves.

That the team is allowed to continue their season for a while without any male authority figure is one of several examples of this League trying to have things both ways, and only sometimes succeeding. At times, it very bluntly illustrates the many ways this time period could be oppressive to women like Carson and Max. At others, it has an air of wish fulfillment, where characters get away with behavior considered deviant at the time because the show wants them to, whether because it feels less bleak or because the anachronistic power dynamic is needed to keep certain subplots moving.

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The main problem, though, is that even though Carson and Max are given various romantic and professional complications, both tend to feel more like symbols than people. The show does much better by supporting characters like Greta (Carden continually lights up the screen), Max’s comic book-loving best friend Clance (Gbemisola Ikumelo), or cocky Peaches pitcher Lupe (Roberta Colindrez), all of whom intersect with Jacobson and Graham’s thematic areas of interest but also have rougher and more human edges to them. When the story drifts over to the far corners of the field — say, swaggering Canadian player Jess (Kelly McCormack) trying to broker peace between Lupe and the monolingual Cuban immigrant Esti (Priscilla Delgado) — it feels emotionally richer than most of what’s happening around home plate with its main protagonists.

Or maybe the problem is that the show is simultaneously trying to remake the movie and act as a corrective to it. The quoted lines are a mixed bag, with the use of “There’s no crying in baseball!” feeling sadly obligatory, while a rendition of “Victory Song” from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League arrives at the perfect moment. And the climax of the TV season’s final game is both touching and slightly distracting, almost playing as if it’s trying to subtly answer an unsolved mystery from the film.

The larger idea of what Jacobson, Graham, and company are trying to do with this beloved title is a noble one, and worth exploring. The movie is incredible, but it only scratches the surface of all the stories that could be told about female athletes in the Forties. But for all the potential of that idea for the show, the execution isn’t yet big league-worthy.

All eight episodes of A League of Their Own will debut August 12 on Amazon Prime Video. I’ve seen the whole season.

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A League of Their Own review: This Rockford Peaches reboot hits the sweet spot

Amazon's update of Penny Marshall's classic 1992 film expands the Peaches' universe in diverse and meaningful ways.

Kristen Baldwin is the TV critic for EW

In today's TV landscape, "reboot" is generally a dirty word, signaling a lack of imagination and a calcified cynicism about what the industry believes viewers want (or, at the very least, what they'll settle for). But Amazon Prime Video 's A League of Their Own is less a reboot than it is a spiritual sister to Penny Marshall's classic 1992 film. The eight-episode dramedy, created by Abbi Jacobson ( Broad City ) and Will Graham ( Mozart in the Jungle ), constructs a diverse and three-dimensional world to tell the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, whereas the film — wonderful as it is — could only show us the Hollywood-glossy surface.

When we first meet Carson Shaw (Jacobson), she is racing for the train to Chicago, literally fleeing the dull domesticity of her life as a housewife in 1943 Idaho for a shot at the big leagues. She's one of hundreds of women invited to try out for the newly founded AAGPBL, a venture dreamt up by baseball execs looking to keep the game going while America's able-bodied men fight for freedom overseas.

Carson lands a spot on the Rockford Peaches, along with leggy bombshell Greta ( D'Arcy Carden ); slugger Jo Deluca (Melanie Field); Jess (Kelly McCormack), a no-nonsense outfielder; Esti (Priscilla Delgado), a lightning-fast teenager from Cuba; Shirley Cohen (Kate Berlant), a neurotic stats whiz; Maybelle Fox (Molly Ephraim), a bubbly center fielder; and Lupe (Roberta Colindrez), a talented pitcher dubbed the "Spanish Striker" by announcers even though she's from Mexico. But Max (Chanté Adams), a local hopeful with an arm like a rocket launcher, isn't even allowed to try out — this is still 1940s America, and only white (and white-passing) women need apply.

Though there are some perfunctory nods to the movie — the Peaches balk at the idea of playing in skirts; their coach, Dove ( Nick Offerman ), acts like a condescending boor; more than one person says "There's no crying in baseball" — A League of Their Own follows its own playbook from the first episode. Time away from her soldier husband ( Patrick J. Adams ) frees Carson up to identify what she really wants, and that turns out to be Greta. The movie poked plenty of fun at the league's real-life rules about charm school training and "ladylike" behavior, but the show lets its characters say the quiet part out loud. "Why do you think they're doing all this, Carson?" Greta hisses to her teammate during a mandatory makeover. "It's to make sure we don't look like a bunch of queers."

The change in medium and era allows Jacobson and Graham to construct a deeper narrative around women seeking not just camaraderie but community. For players like Greta and Carson and so many others, the league is a safe haven from a hostile society that shuns them and a legal system that jails them for the crime of "sexual inversion." For players like Max, however, no such sanctuary exists — so A League of Their Own follows her story on a separate track, rather than tossing her in with the Peaches through some anachronistic plot contrivance. Max is a Black woman who wants to play baseball, but she's also a Black queer woman who knows she'll never be happy with the life her mother (Saidah Arrika Ekulona) wants for her.

Not deterred by the AAGPBL's rejection, Max gets a job at a local factory in the hopes of landing a spot on the minor league team the owner sponsors. She may not have a league, but Max has the unwavering devotion of her best friend, Clance (Gbemisola Ikumelo), a newly married comic book fan and aspiring artist who knows Captain America is propaganda and The Wizard of Oz is just an allegory for colonial oppression. Adams and Ikumelo are an immensely likable comedic duo, and at times Max and Clance threaten to steal the show out from under the Peaches' skirts. But the ensemble has a strong defense lineup: Carden brings vulnerability and an undeniable sexiness to Greta, whose saucy charm masks a survivor's hypervigilance. Jacobson lends her self-effacing charm to Carson, serving as the even-keeled anchor to the ensemble of comedic character actresses.

The writers do a commendable job keeping Carson and Max's parallel arcs afloat while squeezing in some subplots for the superlative supporting players — but later episodes of League buckle a bit under the weight of so much story. And Offerman's character just sort of disappears halfway through the season, an odd changeup that felt a little "Amazon execs wanted someone in the Tom Hanks role for the trailer" to me.

But none of that really mattered when it came time for the finale, a barn burner of an hour that blends a legitimately moving championship climax with a critical relationship cliffhanger. Like the Peaches, A League of Their Own hasn't yet perfected its game, but there's almost no doubt these girls of summer will be back. B+

A League of Their Own Review: A Remake Series That's Flawed, Fun, and Empowering

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The Crow Review: A Gruesome Reboot Falls Far Short of the Classic Original Film

The killer review: doesn't hold a candle to the original but not a dud either, greedy people review: coen brother vibes help boost joseph gordon-levitt's hillbilly noir.

"Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life," a woman recites in the new series A League of Their Own , quoting a passage from Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , "Let me be cold, let me be warm. Let me be hungry, or have too much to eat. Let me be honorable, or let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute." In one sense, the new Amazon Prime Video series is a passionate plea to let people be who they want to be, a story about a group of women who don't fit in with social norms but who just want to be something, to do something that they want, even if that means mistakes will follow.

Interestingly, when reading Smith's words, the character leaves out something from the actual novel — "let me be gay; let me be sad." Of course, in Smith's time, 'gay' mostly meant 'merry,' filled with good cheer; today, it means something different. The fact that this line is omitted when read in the show is telling, indicating that these women feel forced to hide so much of themselves, including their sexuality, in order to simply function in society.

A League of Their Own is very perceptive in this way, remaking the 1992 classic with an almost entirely female cast and maintaining its feel-good energy while updating its politics. It makes some (almost unavoidable) bad decisions with its narrative and cast, but on the whole is a very welcoming, fun, forward-thinking show about the past.

A Baseball Classic Gets a Remake in A League of Their Own

A cast of catchers in the 2022 remake of A League of Their Own

A League of Their Own takes place at the height of the war effort around 1943, beginning appropriately with a running woman, speeding away from 'her place' as a wife and homemaker and toward her future as a baseball player. She falls flat on her face in the dirt, then gets right back up and runs. This is Carson Shaw, played by the ever-endearing Abbi Jacobson, who co-creates and co-writes the series (with Will Graham) as she did in her great comedy show Broad City . Jacobson is always spunky but compassionate in her performances, awkward but endlessly charming, and she brings the same vibe to A League of Their Own .

Shaw is headed to try out for the very real Rockford Peaches, one of the original teams from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the grandmother of all women's professional sports leagues. Women's sports became professionalized in 1943 when so many men were occupied with World War 2 ; women couldn't serve in the military, but starting that year, they could play baseball in the big leagues.

Darcy Carden plays Greta and Abbi Jacobson plays Carson Shaw in the 2022 remake of A League of Their Own

Women also couldn't own a bank account or a credit card, take legal action against sexual harassment, get a business loan, take birth control or have abortions, or defend themselves against spousal rape (a man could rape his wife whenever he wanted to without any accountability; marital rape was legal and not considered rape in all 50 states until 1993). Women could be fired from their job for being pregnant or needing maternity leave and had only recently just been allowed to vote.

The system was structurally designed so that women couldn't get ahead; the absence of working men in America during World War 2 and the economic need to keep industry and entertainment afloat finally gave women the opportunities they wanted. As such, A League of Their Own follows a group of women who are sick of being told what they can or can't do, and when they see a chance at playing baseball professionally, they run as fast as they can to 'steal' home and attempt to win a championship. None of this is easy, and the series expertly shows just how hard these women have to work (and how much bull they have to put up with) in order to be something.

The Wonderful Women Cast in A League of Their Own

The cast of women huddle in the 2022 remake of A League of Their Own

The original A League of Their Own is one of the great baseball movies , with a wonderful ensemble cast to round out their version of the Rockford Peaches (Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Lori Petty, and many more), but this film about women's baseball put a disproportionate emphasis on men. Tom Hanks led the charge as the team's manager (and, essentially, coach) in a hilarious, perfect performance; Jon Lovitz, David Strathairn, Garry Marshall, and Bill Pullman were all prominent as well. The new TV series will have none of that. Nick Offerman is introduced in the Tom Hanks role, but he dips out a few episodes in, leaving the women to coach themselves and the show to exist without any male chaperones.

Related: A League of Their Own TV Cast: Other Roles You’ve Seen the Actors Play

It's an immensely wise decision, and not the only way A League of Their Own acts as a kind of course correction to that previous film. The cast of women who lead themselves in the show is tremendous, with Jacobson, Chanté Adams, D'Arcy Carden, Roberta Colindrez, Kelly McCormack, Priscilla Delgado, Lea Robinson, Molly Ephraim, and the very funny Kate Berlant all managing to shine despite a wide ensemble cast that includes even more characters than these. The casting is very important here, and smart decisions were made to choose character actors who feel familiar, have an innate sense of comedic timing, and look the part. Everyone basically does a great job, though Jacobson and Carden are the real home run here.

Carden plays Greta, one of the more 'traditionally' beautiful women on the team and one who's privy to the rules of the game, of society as much as of baseball. Greta has been wounded into hiding, turning bitter after society punished her years ago for expressing her actual self; as a result, she's cynical and can manipulate her survival as a queer woman who wants to truly get ahead in life. Charming, sensuous, and resilient, Greta's a great character who opens up Carson Shaw's world and takes her to third base, liberating her from the cage society convinced her to step into.

There's No Politics in Baseball

Chanté Adams as Max and Gbemisola Ikumelo as Clance in A League of Their Own 2022

Greta and Shaw aren't the only LGBTQ+ characters in A League of Their Own , and the decision to tenderly navigate these relationships and experiences is an important one. By looking into the oppressive modes of patriarchy's past, the new series is actually rather forward-thinking in its politics. Of course, this will likely alienate some viewers who may feel like they can't turn on the television without subscribing to progressive ideology.

The culture industry has certainly appropriated the fight for civil rights and monetized queer representation, turning politics into profit, but A League of Their Own isn't didactic about this; it focuses on the humanity of marginalized people in 1943 and, to some extent, today —immigrant, woman, lesbian, poor, Black, tomboy, queer, and every 'other' who wasn't permitted to be something and who were just recently being allowed to swing a bat. By exploring the human element of these topics rather than being preachy about them, A League of Their Own might even win some converts onto the right side of history, the winning team that allows every kind of person to be something.

Related: A League of Their Own TV Series: Plot, Cast, and Everything Else We Know

The series makes an admirable attempt to do the same with the Black experience, something only briefly touched upon in the great '90s movie. While women had only just been allowed to do these things, everything was still racially segregated and Black women wouldn't have the same opportunities for years. Consequently, A League of Their Own attempts to rectify the underrepresentation of the past and includes an important narrative about a strong but stubborn Black woman, Max, who has more passion for (and talent with) baseball than perhaps anyone else. Unfortunately, and almost by necessity, this storyline trips up the show as a whole.

A League of Their Own: Flawed, Feel-Good Female Empowerment

A League of Their Own cast in the 2022 remake

Chanté Adams and especially Gbemisola Ikumelo are wonderful as Max and her best friend Clance, who get rejected from the Rockford Peaches in the first episode; their chemistry together is endlessly easy and entertaining to behold. It's obviously historically accurate to separate them from the main plot of the Peaches, but by being inclusive and exploring the experiences of Black women as well, A League of Their Own often stumbles.

This is not to say that Max's narrative is weak, but it breaks up the action and drama of the show by oscillating between two almost completely unconnected stories, even if they are thematically similar. It often feels more than bifurcated, as if A League of Their Own were two shows spliced into each other sometimes arbitrarily; the series scores runs for inclusion but loses the game of narrative cohesion.

Chante Adams as Max and Abbi Jacobson as Carson Shaw in A League of Their Own

It's also a surprisingly unfunny show, considering how many talented and funny people are involved (and how funny the original film is). A League of Their Own isn't unfunny in the sense that it tries for sidesplitting jokes and instead fails, but rather that it doesn't even step up to bat and make the attempt. Jacobson is hilarious in Broad City and Disenchanted , Carden is the same in A Good Place and Barry , and much of the ensemble are mostly known for their comedic skills, so it's odd how few actual laughs there are in A League of Their Own . Then again, this is a show that takes women seriously, and nobody is made out to be a joke.

Instead of gut-busting, belly-aching laughs, the show exudes a warm kindness; instead of many big chuckles, the viewer gets a consistent, closed-mouth smile. A League of Their Own is more of a drama, but a feel-good one that manages to be pleasantly delightful while also tackling some serious ideas. It's a show that lets women be something every blessed minute, even if that something isn't always funny or cohesive.

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‘a league of their own’ review: abbi jacobson’s amazon reboot eventually hits its stride.

Jacobson co-creates and stars alongside Chanté Adams and D'Arcy Carden in a reboot of the 1992 film about the Rockford Peaches, an all-female pro baseball team launched during the height of World War II.

By Angie Han

Television Critic

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“There’s no version of myself that makes sense for the world,” Max (Chanté Adams) says in Amazon’s A League of Their Own , and it’s plain to see why: She’s a Black woman in a country run by white men, a queer person still figuring out her own identity, a baseball phenom barred from the all-female league on account of her race and shunned by the integrated local team on account of her gender.

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A League of Their Own Review: Amazon TV Remake Makes a Pitch for Progress, But It’s More Preachy Than Peachy

Dave nemetz, west coast bureau chief.

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The tone here is hard to pin down: It’s half goofy improv-style comedy and half earnest social commentary, and the two don’t always mix together well. The comedy is laden with anachronistic dialogue and jokes, too, that spoil the vintage vibe. Jacobson and Carden are both gifted comedians, but the arc of Carson and Greta’s forbidden romance is soppy and predictable. We may not have seen anything this explicitly gay in the original movie, but we’ve definitely seen LGBTQ storylines like this many times before. Plus, so much time is spent on Carson and Greta that the other ballplayers don’t get a chance to shine. There’s no dynamic here as strong as the complicated rivalry between the film’s sisters Dottie and Kit, and no one to challenge the girls like Tom Hanks’ reluctant manager Jimmy Dugan. (Nick Offerman should be a home run as the Peaches’ manager, but he barely makes an impression.)

A League of Their Own Amazon Max Chante Adams

This show just needs more baseball, too — which is an odd complaint to make about something based on A League of Their Own . We only get about four minutes of baseball action in the premiere, and while we do get more in later episodes, the gameplay is marred by unconvincing CGI effects that makes the pitches and throws look like a video game. (It made me long for the authentic game action of the original, back before they CGI-ed everything.) There are some good performances here I wanted to see more of, like Gbemisola Ikumelo as Max’s bubbly comic book geek pal Clance and Dale Dickey as the Peaches’ gruff chaperone Sergeant Beverly, and I do appreciate the effort to highlight some of the stories the film didn’t tell. But the fun is conspicuously missing, and the muddled and labored end result is a far cry from the movie that inspired it.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Amazon’s A League of Their Own tries to expand on the original film with socially conscious storylines, but it swings and misses.

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bummer, I was really hoping for comedy. I wonder if any of this is why the show took so long to come to fruition.

After seeing the trailer, I was afraid this would be the case…I’ll still give it a chance do to the great cast and my apprecation of the original but my expecting are now very low.

Skip. I don’t want to be preached at, I want to be entertained. Too many shows in recent years have gotten overtly preachy instead of telling good authentic stories. Bummer but TV is my escape, I don’t look to it to see if it’s going to pass the social media cancel culture diversity and representation inspection.

I think more and more people are getting exhausted by storytellers (and politicians) who want to make everything about race and gender, since it’s such a vastly oversimplified lens that cuts out large swaths of the human experience. It’s how we end up with a show like this that no one was asking for in the first place that basically says, “Hey, remember that movie about baseball that you all loved? What if we sapped all the fun out of it, ditch the actual baseball, and turn it into a lecture about intersectional oppression?”

Thanks for your honesty and just coming out and saying it–the preachiness is tiring. Can we go back to regular storytelling without contorting to “check off boxes”?

It is especially frustrating when these shows are sold outside of America. I can appreciate that there are and have in the past been issues in America, but that experience is not the same or going on the same way now in other countries around the world. Would be nice if TV execs remember that when making these programs.

When it becomes a PSA it is no longer entertainment. Pass.

How long are the episodes? 4 minutes of baseball in a baseball show is bad even for a 22 minute episode, but atrocious for a 60 minute show.

I had a feeling. And btw, I’m super liberal. Was that a bad time to be gay or black? Sure. Without question, and it wasn’t right. But I think that almost each and every show is trying to tell that story now, no matter when its set and its tired, even for those of us who care about social justice and equality.

If black women couldn’t play baseball back then, we could acknowledge it with one scene of a gifted player not being allowed to join, and then move on, without them joining the cast and getting dumb subplots.

True, and lets be honest- the people who should be learning from storylines like that? Aren’t watching this. They’re watching Tucker and Hannity and Blue Bloods reruns

Please. It’s 2022. We all know our history. No need to be spreading gratuitous insults.

Should be learning? Because we aren’t professional victims or arrogant hand- wringers, like you, Ms Smug? Time to go insultingly “save” another minority, because YOU truly don’t believe they’re your equals! You and your ignorant ilk are beyond vile!

Even though I watch those programs as well, that statement you made simply isn’t true.

Everything has to be preachy now or it doesn’t get made. Stop preaching and just tell a good story.

How many continuous fails will it take before the preaching stops and the good writing starts? I mostly watch older shows and movies on streaming services because most of it today is mediocre at best.

Wow, if TVLine admits it’s preachy, it must be really bad…

This rendition of a classic movie will not have broad appeal but rather a niche series for a niche of the population. The purpose of the series gets lost in the message it is trying to communicate. I know that the LGBTQIA audience has long been looking for tv shows and movies that showcase some of the issues and realities they have had to face but fail to see a balance between plot and character development. It is at times too dark and rather stale. Maybe they are trying too hard thus losing the audience in the process. The characters are one dimensional and somewhat plastic. In short, it is an old classic for a new audience. I can only give it 2 out of 5 stars.

Entertaining TV this is not. Comedy is taking a back seat. Today the pendulum of PC ‘everything’ swings so far left that we don’t have a chance for Pure entertainment.

I’m all for representation but I really dislike “woman cheats on overseas husband” storyline.

After watching the first episode I say this show is a disgrace to the original movie which is one of my all time favorites. Wow way to ruin it.

From reading these comments, it seems like many people are defining “preachy” as “having storylines revolving around women of colour and queer women”. If you for some reason consider a show with protagonists who aren’t white and/or straight to be “woke” or “preachy”, then I guess this one isn’t for you. I love the movie too, but I really love that the show explores a lot of what the movie didn’t address. The show is not inventing social issues as a grasp at representation. These are real issues that were very prominent at the time, and in the AAGPBL specifically.

I just wanted to comment so that people browsing this section will see that some people really love the show and if you’re at all curious, you should check out the pilot and make up your own mind. I thought the first episode was one of the best and most compelling pilots I’ve seen in a very long time. And the show (and the cast) is a joy to watch.

My issue with it is that it’s unrealistic! One in three people aren’t non-cisgender, as I frequently encounter on shows that are trying to make a point about marginalized. IRL, they make up what? about 10% of the population? If that. I suppose you can google it yourself and determine what percentage of the population it is. But these tv shows constantly making them main characters as if they make up at least a third of the population. As far as people of color, I don’t have an issue with their representation on tv as they are proportionately represented. Let’s imagine going shopping where there are crowds of people–let’s use Walmart. You may pass at least 50 people. By the way tv represents the marginalized, out of those 50 people in the store at least 17 of those people are non-cisgender. Do you find that an accurate reflection? I suppose it tires me because, IRL, I accept people for who they are and for the most part, it’s none of my business. If I were to see PDA of non-cisgender in public, I would consider it none of my business as well as they have every right to live their lives and most importantly, they should be able to live in their own skin without the need to hide who they are.

You apparently aren’t reading the comments very closely if you think this. The writing is substandard, the characters are reprehensible and not likeable at all, save for the side characters who get almost no focus (The chaperone and the black girl’s dad are two examples off the top of my head) and there’s almost no baseball IN A SHOW ABOUT BASEBALL!!! I’m a huge fan of the original film so I was willing to give this show the benefit of the doubt since it’s such a beloved 90’s classic. I was severely disappointed with the final product because I’m expected to sympathize with and root for a woman who cheats on her husband while he’s off overseas protecting both her and her fellow Americans by fighting Nazis, and I’m also supposed to sympathise with her side piece, who knowingly and willingly pursues a married woman despite being unequivocally rejected in the first episode. Not to mention the other characters aren’t much better. A Latina woman who cries racism because she was justifiably punished for attacking one of her fellow players, a ditz of a blonde with no screentime, and an ignorant pigtailed farm girl so gullible and stupid she immediately buys the half-baked and idiotic lies Carson tells her in order to cover up the sordid affair she’s having while her aforementioned husband is fighting in the most devastating conflict in human history? Yeah, no. I gave season 1 5 episodes to impress me out of 8. It didn’t happen. The only reason I plan on watching the other three episodes is because I have a pathological need to see things through once they’ve started. I will NOT be coming back for season two, presuming this train wreck of a show gets one.

Great review–spot on and well articulated. I enjoyed the series, but well, ^^^.

I was so disappointed in the Peaches movie. I’m quite sure this side track is not what most are expecting. A story about baseball not sex…. I give it a 0 So disappointed!!

This adaptation is an abomination of the original and agree with the overall opinion of too many heavy handed subplots and also too much focus on same sex scenes that added nothing to the story, two stars at best.

I agree with this review and most of what’s been said in the comments. I’m all for telling more inclusive stories, but this is a sorry attempt and a lazy one at that. Penny Marshall will be rolling in her grave with cgi being used for baseball after she held try outs for casting to ensure the game play was realistic. And I’m sorry, but how many adult women were named Carson in the 1940s? That’s nitpicking, but attention to details like that matter in a period piece and if the writers/creators can’t bother to get that right then why should we trust them to get the rest of the story right? Hard pass – I’ll watch the movie instead, which still holds up pretty well 30 years later. There’s much better inclusive storytelling elsewhere too.

Lost interest within the first 20 minutes. It’s not even close to the original which was a true story. A league of some🙄🔥

Disappointing. I am all for true diversity, but make it realistic and honor the time period/behaviors and speech of the era. This show was so “modernized” that I thought they were about to take selfies to upload to their Instagram account. I counted about 5 to 6 gay characters and maybe a few trans people too. Also, the Af-American woman’s character behaved as if she had been transported from the future to the 1940s and didn’t understand how the world worked at that time- blowing up at every injustice like someone today would- not like a woman from the 1940s even if she was an activist- A woman from the 1940s would know the scene and do her justice work with more stealth and decorum- also upstanding women did not curse loudly in public during that time- that was jitterbug parlor talk or low women/floozies and Jezebel’s speech and even they didn’t go for the hard profanity normally- stop trying to reimagine history/facts matter. I am so tired of this weirdness of rewriting history to fit the story they want to craft for today’s times.

::thumbs up::

I was so looking forward to this series because I wanted to see women playing professional baseball. But baseball takes a backseat to the personal stories, which are disjointed and seem to be only trying to make a point.

Now that I’ve finished the series, I can confirm 100% of what you’ve talked about.

Way too preachy (in addition to making lgbtq be the ‘norm’)

The black woman’s journey is indeed an awkward addition (and she also has to be lesbian)

As an AVID hater of most things CGI, the use of the effects to throw baseballs was completely unnecessary and made me cringe each time there was a pitch.

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A League of Their Own movie review (1992)
At the time, it seemed as if the women's league might mean the financial survival of the major league baseball franchises and their owners. The movie gives us a Chicago candy-bar mogul in place of the Wrigleys and shows his agents scouting the countryside for women who could play ball. In a rural area of Oregon, the scout finds two sisters, Dottie and Kit ( Geena Davis and Lori Petty ), one ...
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To many, women having a league of their own was a truly baffling concept, and the movie creatively and effectively addresses the genuine panic that permeated the era.
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A League of Their Own is one of the best sports movies ever made, featuring plenty of humor, heart, and memorable characters.
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8/10. A Simple but effective Movie. mjw2305 23 January 2005. Set at the start of World War 2, Geena Davis and Lori Petty are recruited to the first professional baseball league for women. The sisters struggle to keep the league going against the odds, while their own personal rivalry begins to escalate.
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A League of Their Own: Directed by Penny Marshall. With Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna. During World War II, sisters Dottie and Kit join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amid their own growing rivalry.
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Two sisters join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amidst their own growing rivalry.
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A League of Their Own Review. In 1943 Major League Baseball has been decimated by call-ups to the armed services, leaving the ladies to step up to the plate, literally, keeping the sport alive for ...
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But Prime Video's new " A League of Their Own " is a winning remake, one that updates the 30-year-old original in all the right ways while cherishing the favorite touch-points of the original. Our protagonist is still the catcher, arguably the least lady-like position (which matters in its 1940s setting) with her face hidden behind the ...
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