“There’s no crying in baseball.” Tom Hanks’ reformation alone of this classic baseball movie line in “A League of Their Own” makes this movie worth renting, not to mention that this is the time of year when baseball fever is high. And, for those baseball fanatics who are just itching to get outside and throw the ball around on those rainy summer days — this is the movie to rent.
Set in 1943 during World War II, the movie depicts the creation of the girls’ baseball league necessitated since all of the male players were going to war. Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell lead the cast of all-stars who make it onto the Rockford Peaches. Directed by Penny Marshall, “A League of Their Own” stars Geena Davis as Dottie Henson — the star catcher of the team who only tried out so her sister, Kit (Lori Petty) could try out for the league also. Madonna plays the boy-toy, ex-dancer now turned center fielder and O’Donnell is the smart-mouthed third-baseman.
After tryouts, the girls are forced to withstand charm school and a 24-hour chaperone. For a manager, they’re stuck with the has-been baseball great Jimmy Dugan (Hanks) who couldn’t go to war because of a hurt knee he sustained after falling from a porch while drunk. For half the season all he does is wave his hat to the crowd and spend the rest of the game in a drunken stupor inside the dugout. Then, halfway through the season, he finally wakes up and realizes these girls may actually be able to play baseball. While he keeps his sarcastic attitude toward the girls, he starts warming up to the job and actually starts to care whether or not they win.
The movie is more than just girls in short skirts playing baseball, though. There is the constant conflict between Kit and Dottie as Kit becomes more and more jealous that Dottie is outshining her and holding her back. Dottie tells the league they have to fix it, and to do so they trade Kit to the Racine team — a move Kit is not very happy with.
And, as it always is in the movies, it is Dottie’s and Kit’s teams that end up facing off in the World Series. Dottie does not play the first few games, as she leaves to go back home when her husband Bob (Bill Pullman) returns from war. But she comes back for the nail-biter seventh game to face her sister one more time.
“A League of Their Own” is the perfect reliable rent for everyone — even those who are not huge baseball fans. It’s a great way to spend two hours, and it will leave everyone wanting to play baseball.