“A League of Their Own” was one of those movies that always seemed to be airing on cable when I was growing up — and I mean always. It’s not a dad movie, per se; technically, its nearly all-women cast makes it the opposite of one. Yet, it hits a lot of the same pleasure centers. It even stars America’s Dad himself, Tom Hanks! At the time, though, the actor was coming off a string of box office misfires and was far from the national treasure that he is today. Hence, he asked his old buddy Penny Marshall — who had directed him in the 1988 hit “Big” (a problematic fantasy-comedy that I still have a soft spot for) four years earlier — to cast him in “A League of Their Own,” hoping it would change his fortunes. And boy, did it ever.
Marshall’s sports dramedy tells a fictional story about the origins of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), which was founded in 1943. Hanks, in one of his all-time best roles, co-stars as Jimmy Dugan, a heavy-drinking former MLB player who’s hit rock-bottom when he agrees to manage the Rockford Peaches for the organization. Initially oafish and sexist, Jimmy comes to see the error of his ways thanks in part to the team’s all-star catcher Dorothy “Dottie” Hinson (Geena Davis), a remarkable athlete who refuses to tolerate his guff. As they shape the Peaches into a winning team, Jimmy and Dottie gradually become pals (with Dottie even turning Jimmy off the booze and onto a nice, refreshing soda pop instead). However, had “A League of Their Own” stuck to an earlier version of its script, the pair’s platonic friendship would’ve ultimately turned into a quasi-romance.
A League of Their Own almost had a love triangle
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter to commemorate “A League of Their Own” turning 30 in 2022, Davis and writer Lowell Ganz explained how the Dottie-Jimmy relationship evolved over the course of post-production. According to Davis, she and Hanks actually shot a scene where their characters “have a private conversation at night on the pitcher’s mound and then end up kissing at the end of it.” However, test audiences “really didn’t like that that happened,” as Davis put it, which led to it being cut.
Ganz added that that the Dottie-Jimmy romance was a “sore point” for the cast and crew, as none of them actually wanted to include it. “It was the studio that said, ‘Wait a minute, you have these two very attractive movie stars. The audience is waiting for sparks,'” he explained. As Ganz described it, the scene had Jimmy impulsively kissing Dottie while they’re alone on a baseball mound one night. In response, Dottie kisses him back before angrily pulling away. They also shot some additional scenes where the pair work through the ensuing awkwardness, with Jimmy later apologizing for the whole thing.
If that reads like a whole lot of unnecessary drama, that’s apparently how it played out as well. “Nothing against Geena and Tom — they were excellent — but we just thought, ‘Boy, this just really feels like we’re trying too hard,'” Ganz recalled, noting that the film was “too long” at that stage anyway. On top of that, Dottie is already married when the movie starts, with her husband Bob (Bill Pullman) off fighting in WWII. That means the Dottie-Jimmy romance would’ve given rise to a full-blown love triangle when Bob returns home around the beginning of the third act.
There’s no kissing in baseball!
To be clear, I’m not one of those grown-ass weirdos who insist on movies being devoid of any sort of sexual content. (Bring back sex scenes in movies!) I’m also not here to rag on the so-called “puriteens” who question the need for romance and sex scenes at all. When you really listen to their complaints, you realize a lot of those seemingly prudish young folk aren’t anti-romance so much as they’re anti-heteronormativity and against forcing relationships to be romantic when it makes no sense. At the same time, I realize that whether or not a romance between characters makes sense is very subjective. It depends on how you feel about the way they’re written, the actors’ chemistry, and so forth. (See also: the recent debate around the kiss cut from “Twisters.”)
For the most part, though, I think the majority of people would agree that while Davis and Hanks have terrific platonic chemistry, they don’t give off romantic vibes in “A League of Their Own” — like, at all. Speaking to THR, Davis also noted that the real-life AAGPBL players who consulted on the film “felt that that was just not right: ‘No way should you say that we were sleeping with coaches because that was not the case.'” (A lot of the women who played in the AAGPBL were also gay, as would eventually be depicted in Prime Video’s wonderful “A League of Their Own” streaming series.)
Ganz echoed that, saying the movie’s pacing benefited tremendously from that subplot being exorcised. He added that it also improved the scene where Dottie returns to the Peaches and reconciles with Jimmy after quitting upon her husband’s return, which Ganz fel had been “polluted with what had gone on between [Dottie and Jimmy]. We were just so relieved to get it out of there.”