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ALeagueOfTheirOwn 9564
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"Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There's no crying! THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!"
Jimmy Dugan
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As all the best baseball stars went off to fight the good war, something had to be done to get baseball stadiums busy. One man's solution: Create the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. This is their story.

To be more concise, A League of Their Own is a 1992 film directed by Penny Marshall, starring her brother Garry, and featuring Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz. It is a fictionalized telling of the founding of the aforementioned baseball league and its struggles to stay relevant after the war ended. The main focus is the Rockford (Ill.) Peaches, headed by drunkard former baseball player Jimmy Dugan, and Kit and Dottie, two sisters who join the team.

Spawned a television adaptation on CBS running for six episodes, airing at bizarrely-varying times (somewhere between May and August) throughout 1993.

The movie was named to the National Film Registry in 2012.

Not to be confused with the British sports panel show of the same name.


Tropes used in A League of Their Own include:
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Jimmy Dugan: Does he know how good you are?
Dottie Hinson: Bob?
Jimmy Dugan: No, Hitler. Yes, Bob.

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  • Big Damn Heroes: Dottie returns just in time for the final game of the world series. Subverted in that they lose.
  • Big Game
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Doris. Makes sense, since she was a bouncer at a strip club.
  • Book Ends: The elderly Dottie attending the league's induction into the baseball hall of fame.
  • Bottomless Bladder: Jimmy subverts this.
  • Call Back: The iconic "THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!!" rant quoted above comes after Evelyn bursts into tears when manager Jimmy Dugan rips her for missing the cutoff (wo-)man on a throw from the outfield. During the final game of the World Series, she makes the identical error, allowing Racine to score their first run. She finally gets it right in the climactic scene when she fields Kit's base hit deep in the gap and uncorks an excellent throw to the cutoff man, but Kit's still safe.
    • Evelyn burst into tears after Jimmy screamed at her, "Start using your head! That's the lump that's three feet above your ass!" Later:
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Jimmy: So, let's play hard, let's play smart, use your heads.
Doris: That's that lump three feet above our ass, right, Jimmy?
Jimmy: Some more prominent than others, there, Doris.

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Shirley: Her. M - mi - mil - mil - milky, milky. White, white. Milky white.
Evelyn: Mae. What are you giving her to read?!
Mae: Oh, what the difference does it make? She's reading, okay?

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  • Newsreel: "Betty Grable has nothing on these gals!"
  • Nobody Poops: Gloriously averted in the scene where Tom Hanks takes an extraordinarily long pee.
    • It's so long Mae pulls out a stopwatch. "He ain't done yet!"
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Jimmy Dugan represents Jimmie Foxx, who managed the Fort Wayne Daisies in the real league, and Walter Harvey the candy bar magnate founder was inserted in place of P.K. Wrigley, the gum magnate founder of the real league.
  • Refused by the Call: The league scout has no real interest in Kit only recruits her because her older sister won't join without her. This builds up resentment on her part (she had already spent her life in her Dottie's shadow) that culminates when the Dottie goes to the bosses saying they just can't play on the same team anymore (hoping to be traded) and accidentally gets her little sister shipped off to another team.
  • Save Our League
  • Sibling Rivalry: Dottie and Kit. It doesn't help that everything Dottie tries to rectify the situation makes things worse (memorably, when she tells Ira she's thinking of quitting because of the pressures of being on the road, Ira trades Kit to Racine).
  • Spoiled Brat: Stillwell.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Dottie is easily the tallest of the Peaches, and as many of the characters will attest, one of the prettiest.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: A radio commentary plays over the tryout montage stating that the league is a gross perversion of women and they should all be ashamed of themselves and go home. Later, when the league is in danger of being shut down, Ira asks Harvey if he just expects them to all go back to their kitchens.
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Ira: Is that it? Sorry Rosie, put your rivets away and get back in the kitchen?

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"You ever hear Dad introduce us to people? 'This is our daughter Dottie, and this is our other daughter, Dottie's sister.' Should've just had you and bought a dog!"

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  • Unnecessary Roughness: Kit does this as part of an Indy Ploy to win her team the championship.
  • Very Loosely Based on a True Story/Did Not Do the Research: The real AAGPBL did not play regulation baseball, but rather a sort of baseball/softball hybrid. The ball was larger than a baseball (but smaller than a softball) and the bases were closer together (but still farther apart than a softball diamond). Also, while Racine did win the World Series, it was a five-game series, not seven.