Co-created by Abbi Jacobson (Broad City), who also stars, and Will Graham (Mozart in the Jungle), and inspired by Penny Marshall’s pitch-perfect 1992 theatrical film of the same name, this new version of A League of Their Own has its own reason for being. As in the movie, this comedy-drama centers around the Illinois-based Rockford Peaches, one of four teams of women competing in the newly formed All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II (the real-life league operated from 1943-1954). But this is a different group of women from the movie, several of whom simply couldn’t be featured in a mainstream film 30 years ago.
The league was formed as a way to keep America’s pastime going as young men, including many baseball players, were being sent off to war. But this is not simply a remake or a reimagining of the original. It’s more like an expansion. Thirty years ago, the diversity of stories that major studios wanted to delve into was limited. And eight episodes allows for telling more stories than you could fit into a two-hour movie.
This series, while still focusing on the Rockford Peaches, tells the stories of a different (more historically accurate) team of women, and the very real discrimination (and often danger) they experienced and occasionally overcame. The stories of women who, because of the times, had to hide who they really were and socialize in secret. And of others, who because of their skin color didn’t even have the limited opportunities afforded to white women. As this series effectively points out, there are different levels of privilege even among the underprivileged.
The show’s creators reportedly did extensive research into the private lives of the women in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, both on and off the field, and consulted with around 20 former players. This series has more LGBTQ+ lead female characters than any show ever (except those specifically about lesbians, such as The L Word). I was unaware of this before watching the show, since Prime Video’s promos did not focus on this main aspect of the series – probably afraid it might scare away too many viewers. The promos are clearly designed to draw fans of the original movie, many of whom will be surprised by the more adult themes of the TV series.
One reason movies don’t often translate well to television is because they tend to continue stories that were designed for a one-time feature film, and the new cast typically doesn’t live up to the high expectations set by the original – would viewers respond well to a Dottie not played by Geena Davis or a Mae not played by Madonna, or a Doris played by someone other than Rosie O’Donnell? While this has the same basic frame of the original movie, it is essentially a completely new series with different characters. And while the movie primarily centers on baseball and the actual playing of the games, the TV series uses baseball as the launching point to focus on the main characters’ personal lives (although it does have some exciting baseball scenes, particularly the championship game).
The series revolves around two major parallel storylines.
Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson) leaves her small Idaho farm town to pursue her dream of playing baseball while her husband is off to war. While she loves him, she always knew there was something wrong with her marriage. She discovers exactly what that is when she meets Greta, a glamorous, outgoing, flirty, and seemingly confident woman from the big-city (played by the wonderful D’Arcy Carden who many viewers will remember as Janet from The Good Place). Greta uses her femininity and charm, and flaunts the fact that she dates multiple men, to hide the fact that she is gay. She came from New York City to try-out with her fun-loving and inseparable best friend, Jo DeLuca (Melanie Field).
The superb cast of Rockford Peaches include, Roberta Colindrez as Lupe Garcia, the team’s stubborn and emotional Mexican-American pitcher, Kelly McCormick as Jess McCready, a hyper-competitive player from Canada, Priscilla Delgado as Esti Gonzalez, a young Cuban player who doesn’t speak English, Kate Berlant as Shirley Cohen, the only Jewish player on the team, and Molly Ephram as Maybelle Fox, a seemingly oblivious platinum blonde, who surprisingly turns out to be an insightful ally of the gay players.
As in the movie, the girls are forced to go to charm school, and can be kicked off the team if they don’t pass, or if they break the rules (they can be fined for wearing pants outside the home). They also have to wear uniforms not at all suited to playing baseball. The goal is basically to force the players to live up to a feminine ideal (and “8-10 inches of calf”) to sell the league to mostly male baseball fans. These scenes also highlight the casual but rampant racism of the time – a Mexican-American player is called Spanish because it sounds exotic and is more palatable to white fans, while another player is derided as looking “too Semitic.” When Carson asks Greta why she thinks they’re putting them through all this, Carson replies, ‘it’s to make sure we don’t look like a bunch of queers.”
Nick Offerman is Dove, a former major league baseball player, now coach of the Peaches. Unlike the Tom Hanks character, his role has been dramatically reduced. While the misogynistic Jimmy from the movie, stuck around long enough to gradually be redeemed and fully embrace his female players and their dreams, the misogynistic Dove quickly abandons them as soon as he is offered a better job. It seems his character only existed to disappear and provide an excuse to name Carson the team’s manager. He could have done a lot with the part if given a chance, but they wanted this show to focus exclusively on the women. His absence gives more time to the Peaches’ chaperone, Beverly (Dale Dickey), who shines in the role. He may have also just been included so promos could make viewers think the TV series was a truer extension of the movie.
The other major storyline involves Maxine “Max” Chapman (Chante Adams), a talented Black pitcher trying to break into professional baseball. Because of her race, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League won’t even consider her – even after she throws a baseball with such force and accuracy that it’s clear she’s better than any pitcher in the league. Her character is reportedly based on three women who actually played in the Negro Leagues. She is another of the closeted leading characters exploring her sexual identity.
There’s a scene in the original movie where the baseball goes into foul territory and is picked up by a Black woman wearing a nice dress and hat. While Dottie Hansen (Geena Davis) is waiting for the ball to be returned, it is unexpectedly thrown back with incredible force and precision. The Black woman gives Dottie a look as if to say, “That’s right, there’s more going on in the world than you know about.” Dottie silently nods, returns to her game, and the movie continues. Who was that anonymous Black woman, and what was her story? She was obviously good enough to play in this league – but didn’t (or rather, wasn’t allowed to). Her story is Max’s story.
Max manages to get a job at the local factory, which ordinarily doesn’t hire Black women. With the army starting to recruit Black men, however, they are desperate for bodies. She hopes to get a spot on the company’s all-male baseball team. A bigger opportunity arises when a traveling Negro League team comes to town.
Gbemisola Ikumelo is Clance Morgan, Max’s best friend and aspiring comic-book artist, who is initially unaware her friend is gay (and calls trans people “freaks”). Saidah Arrika Ekulona is Toni Chapman, Max’s mom, who owns her own hair salon, and does not support her daughter’s dream of playing baseball, which she sees as a pipe dream. She wants her to take over the salon someday, telling her that without a man, a Black woman will struggle to survive unless she owns her own business.
Lea Robinson is Bert Hart, Max’s trans uncle, in what is a truly groundbreaking role. Dressed in impeccably tailored suits, Bertie is a successful businessman, a Black, gender-nonconforming trans man, living in a hidden world mostly behind closed doors. Equally groundbreaking is that Lea Robinson is transgender and identifies as non-binary gender nonconforming.
Max barely remembers Bertie, who has been estranged from her mother for many years. Bertie lives with his partner Gracie (Patrice Covington), who Bertie calls his wife. When Max finally meets Bertie, and discovers this world, she starts to think maybe the future can lead to more than just an unhappy marriage. Max is surprised that Bertie and his family confidently venture out in public. They see no reason not to live their lives to the fullest despite the obvious dangers.
The two main storylines start to overlap as Carson and Max begin an uneasy friendship that becomes a stronger bond as the series progresses. Carson was there when Max attempted to join the Rockford Peaches. Later, Max saw Carson and Greta secretly kiss, and realizes they may have something in common. They meet up to play catch, or have a catch – they disagree on the correct phrase. They also discuss various aspects of their lives, and Max calls Carson out for not standing up for her when the league wouldn’t let her try out for a team. This makes Carson realizes for the first time that even with her own struggles, by simply being white, she enjoys privileges, however limited, that escape her new friend.
Because of the times, Max and her world could not really interact with the world of the Rockford Peaches, so the two storylines play out separately. In one episode, Carson secretly follows one of her teammates to an underground gay bar (stunned and thrilled that such a place exists). The following episode shows two different hidden communities, as, Carson goes with Greta and several other players back to the underground bar, while at the same time Max attends an LGBTQ+ gathering at Bertie’s home on the edge of town by the railroad tracks – the noise from the trains is very loud at night, but the location provides the privacy they need. Both are taking big risks, since in 1943 you could be arrested and severely beaten by cops for simply being in either place – or being what they derisively called an “invert.”
Rosie O’Donnell has a cameo as the underground bar’s owner – a nod to her Doris character in the original movie and who she really was but was not allowed to be in 1992 (Rosie O’Donnell herself didn’t come out as gay until 10 years later).
After the series premiered, the social media world exploded with universally positive reactions among the LGBTQ+ communities. Of course, in today’s political environment, any real attempts to be more inclusive, particularly if it means tinkering with a beloved movie or TV show, will result in outrage in some quarters and accusations that the producers and writers are just appeasing the “woke mob.” But the stories of Dottie, Kit, Mae, Doris, and the other women from the movie were well told the first time, and don’t really need retelling.
Apparently there is a lot of “review bombing” going on by folks who think this version of A League of Their Own is too “woke,” and that this many players on a team would not really be gay. To those folks, I have just three things to say – 1. Maybelle Blair, who played for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and consulted on the show, came out as a lesbian at 95 years old, and said that roughly two-thirds of the league’s ball players were LGBTQ+. 2. There’s no crying in baseball (or shows about baseball), especially if you haven’t even seen the series yet. 3. This straight, white, male Baby Boomer found the series interesting, eye-opening, and thoroughly entertaining.
It’s interesting that we don’t discover Greta and Carson are gay until the end of episode 1, Max until the end of episode 2, and some other players until episode 6. It was probably smart to get many viewers to like the characters before revealing that aspect of who they are. The show itself starts out as if it is simply going to be a story similar to the movie but with a different group of women – Carson runs to barely get on the train in time, just as Dottie and Kit did in the movie, once there, she meets Greta and Jo, just as Dottie and Kit met Mae and Doris in the movie, and then they enter the stadium in awe as they see all the other female baseball players trying to male one of the teams.
Since so much time is spent with the parallel Carson / Greta and Max storylines, some of the other very interesting characters are unfortunately given short shrift. That can be rectified in season 2 (if there is one), and would make the series considerably stronger.
Because of the subject matter and the representation of multiple LGBTQ+ characters in leading roles, this is an important if not revolutionary series. Because it is so well done and entertaining, it deserves to be renewed. It’s one of the best new shows of the year.
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