Films About Baseball: A League of Their Own and The Jackie Robinson Story

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A League of Their Own (1992)

The first movie I watched was A League of Their Own (1992). It is set primarily in 1943 and features a number of well-known actors such as Tom Hanks as manager Jimmy Dugan, Rosie O’Donnell as 3rd base Doris Murphy, and even Madonna as center fielder Mae Mordabito. The film starts with a scene from the present of an older Dottie Hinson, played by Lynn Cartwright, reluctantly getting ready to attend the induction of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Once there she sees a number of her former friends. A flashback to 1943 is where the majority of the movie is set.

During World War II a group of baseball team owners, led by Chicago Cubs owner and candy baron Walter Harvey (Garry Marshall), search for a way to keep their profits up while most of their male baseball players are sent off to war. Their answer is to create a new baseball league made up of all women players they call the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (this is a minor deviation from the actual historic events where the league was founded first as the All-American Girls Softball League but it isn’t a huge deal). Talent scouts are sent out across the nation in search for women players to fill the four new teams, the Rockford Peaches, Racine Bells, Kenosha Comets, and the South Bend Blue Socks. One scout, Earnie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) is sent to rural Oregon and attends a game of catcher Dottie Hinson (Genna Davis) and her sister, pitcher Kit Keller (Lori Petty). He thinks that Dottie is perfect for the league and offers her a spot in tryouts but Dottie, whose husband is overseas in the war, refuses unless he takes her sister Kit also. It is worth m...

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...ller and hits a home run giving the Dodger’s the National League pennant and solidifying their place in the World Series. While the Dodger’s would end up losing the World Series after seven games it shows the world that African-Americans can be just as good, or better, at baseball than anybody else.

I found the movie to be very informative but slightly too long. It set the mood of the times and showcased some of the hardships faced by Jackie Robinson wonderfully but it had periods of what I can only describe as dullness throughout. Despite the great cast and characters it seemed to drag on at times making it more of a chore to watch all the way through in one sitting. If you are looking at learning about that time in history then 42: A Jackie Robinson Story is a great choice but it may be best to consume it in a couple of chunks with some breaks between.

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