Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A League of Their Own (2022)

2023; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 50; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/21558450.50.1.08

2155-8450

Callie Batts Maddox, Mattea Carveiro,

In August 2022, Amazon released a new television series titled A League of Their Own that promised to build upon and extend the 1992 film of the same name. Co-created by Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson, the show is not a reboot of the film but rather an adaptation that offers new characters, an expanded plot, and a centering of queerness. Set in 1943, the series follows the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), a women's professional league that operated from 1943 to 1954 with teams based in mid-sized cities in the Midwest. Like the film, the series focuses on the Rockford Peaches in their inaugural season, from the initial tryouts to the final championship game. In a departure from the film, the show introduces new characters who play on the Peaches team, including the leading roles of Carson Shaw (played by Abbi Jacobson) and Greta Gill (D'Arcy Carden), as well as supporting characters such as Lupe Garcia (Roberta Colindrez), Shirley Cohen (Kate Berlant), and the fleeting appearance of team manager Casey “Dove” Porter (Nick Offerman). Additional storylines focus on Maxine “Max” Chapman (Chante Adams), a Black ballplayer trying to break into professional baseball; her best friend Clance Morgan (Gbemisola Ikumelo), a newly married aspiring comic book artist; and her uncle Bert (Lea Robinson), a transgender man who encourages Max to embrace her sexuality. The eight episodes that comprise the first season of the series interweave these characters and storylines as the Peaches make a run to the championship and Max pursues opportunities to play ball. Underpinning the series is a focus on queer, Black, and Latina stories that the original film did not portray. These stories, and the nuanced realities that they reveal, are the series’ greatest strength. The baseball action is muted compared to the rich personal storytelling, but the series nonetheless succeeds in broadening understandings of women's baseball history and centralizing identities and experiences that have largely been hidden in dominant narratives of the game.The series is grounded in intersections of gender, race, sexuality, and sport that hold potential to be meaningful to different people in various contexts. In an attempt to capture a slice of those multiple meanings, we offer a review that grew out of a conversation that we had one afternoon after we each expressed a desire to talk about the show and share observations. We are choosing to replicate the spirit of that conversation by framing our review as a dialogue in response to questions that reflect vital elements of the series. Partly inspired by Holly Thorpe and Rebecca Olive's multigenerational dialogue interrogating feminist sport history,1 we contribute our thoughts and interpretations as two women from different generations with different perspectives and positionalities. What unites us is a shared love of baseball and a commitment to exploring how sport, power, and identity are connected. We start with brief explanations of how and why the new series is significant to each of us, followed by our responses to three questions that we felt touched upon key themes of the show. We conclude with some critiques of the show and reflections on what it can offer sport scholars and fans.CBM: When the original A League of Their Own film first hit theaters, I was a sophomore in high school and the starting shortstop on the varsity softball team. I was also still angry at my school's baseball coach, who refused to let me try out for the baseball team the previous year. At heart, I was a baseball player, having spent my younger years playing in my local little league. I was fourteen years old the first time I threw a softball, and it felt like I was heaving a watermelon across the infield. Baseball was my sport, but at the time I did not realize that I could fight to keep playing. Instead, I gave in to the cultural assumption that girls should play softball. Seeing the movie validated my identity as a baseball player and allowed me to dream about a time when women would play professional baseball again. The film encouraged me to hold tight to my love of baseball. We have not yet seen the rebirth of women's professional baseball in the United States, so the reemergence of A League of Their Own as a television series is a timely reminder of the enduring exclusion of women from our so-called national pastime.MC: As I was growing up, A League of Their Own film was my favorite movie to watch because it was the only time I saw women playing a sport similar to my own, sans college softball and the Olympics. I played softball from the age of four until a career-ending injury in my junior year of college. The years playing a stereotypically queer sport contributed to my internalized homophobia, so much so that I did not fully embrace my queer identity until I stopped playing. The A League of Their Own television series tackles the realities of gender and sexuality norms imposed on women in sports, but also celebrates queer joy that little Mattea desperately needed to see.The show is unapologetically queer and centers the experiences of the queer characters. Why is this significant? How does this centering contribute to more robust understandings of the AAGPBL?MC: A League of Their Own is a queer story with characters who happen to be selected to play in the inaugural season of the AAGPBL. As the show explores and celebrates queer joy through Carson's and Max's stories, it also embraces the athleticism and competitiveness of the players. Similar to the movie, a main point of contention is maintaining public perceptions of femininity while providing entertainment in a traditionally male dominated sporting space. In centering queerness, the writers were able to share realities of queer women in the league while providing commentary of the risks associated with being queer and/or not fitting societal norms of gender expression.CBM: In both the original film and the television series, we see players going through charm school to learn how to conform to norms of white femininity at the time, including lessons in proper posture, makeup application, hairstyling, and dress. Unlike the film, the series calls out these lessons for what they were—attempts to combat the perceived masculinization of the players, impose a heterosexual ideal, and eliminate queerness. In one scene, Greta explains to Carson that the beauty lessons and the AAGPBL's dress code function to “make sure that we don't look like a bunch of queers.” The character of Jess McCready (Kelly McCormack) actively resists these expectations of femininity, preferring to pay the fine for wearing trousers in public rather than don clothes in which she does not feel comfortable. Portraying the players’ awareness of feminine norms, and resistance to them, is an important part of broadening understandings of the lived experiences of these athletes and the agency they exerted. The queer ballplayers constantly negotiated the tension between hiding their identities and finding ways and spaces to be themselves. The risks facing these women are portrayed honestly and candidly in the series, particularly in episode 6 when several of the players enjoy a celebratory night out at a queer bar in Rockford that is later raided by police who beat and arrest several people, including Peaches player Jo DeLuca (Melanie Field). To protect Jo from public outcry and prevent the team and league from receiving negative press, team chaperone Beverly (Dale Dickey) pays the local newspaper to ignore the arrest and arranges for Jo to be traded to the South Bend Blue Sox. While this is a fictionalized scenario, there were many queer players in the AAGPBL who had to hide their sexuality and adhere to the prescribed performance of femininity or risk being cut from the league and seeing their dreams of playing professional baseball vanish. Former AAGPBL player Maybelle Blair estimated that nearly 60 percent of ballplayers were queer during her time in the league, yet their experiences as queer women in 1940s America have often been overlooked in popular representations of the league.2 By centralizing this narrative, the series enriches the humanity of these ballplayers and allows for a fuller realization of who they were and the challenges they faced, both on and off the field. Inspired by these depictions, Blair publicly came out for the first time during the premiere of the show—at the age of ninety-five!3According to the show creators, the character of Max Chapman is partially based on Toni Stone, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, and Connie Morgan, three Black women who played in the Negro Leagues. How is this character adding to the historical narrative of Black women baseball players?CBM: In the original film, there is a very short scene in which a Black woman picks up an errant baseball and throws it back to the Peaches catcher. The two women lock eyes and nod, suggesting the recognition that Black women desired to play baseball but were excluded from the AAGPBL. In the television series, Max travels to Chicago to try out for the league but is rebuffed because she is Black. She demonstrates her skills by throwing a ball from the outfield into the stands behind home plate—as the white players look on—but is denied the opportunity to properly try out. The AAGPBL never had a Black player, even after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in 1947. Stone, Johnson, and Morgan played in the Negro Leagues in the early 1950s, only after they each had spent time playing with various Black semipro and barnstorming teams. Morgan also played several seasons with the North Philadelphia Honey Drippers, a Black all-women's team.4MC: It would have been easy for the writers to take some artistic license and include Max in the Peaches storyline. However, in doing so, they would have negated the fact Black women were not allowed nor welcomed in those spaces despite their athletic talent. In giving Max her own storyline, the audience sees the layers of Max's development not only as a pitcher but as a daughter, a friend, and a queer Black woman.CBM: Absolutely. Max's resolve to play baseball also reminds us that Black women have long been a part of the game, but not in the white spaces that dominate the narratives of American baseball history. Newspaper reports about the all-women Philadelphia Dolly Vardens appeared as early as 1867, the St. Louis-based Black Bronchos women's team traveled across several states in 1911 while amassing a winning record, and Pearl Barrett played first base in 1917 for the Havana Stars, a semipro men's team in Chicago. Black women also formed teams sponsored by local YWCAs throughout the 1910s and 1920s.5 In the show, as we watch Max play for the factory team and then with Red Wright's All-Stars, we see an amalgamation of this history buttressed by a constant reminder of the exclusionary practices of the AAGPBL. Throughout this storyline, Max represents both a celebration of Black women in baseball and their marginalization.How does the show navigate the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality? Which storylines and characters are most effective in this?MC: These connections are frequently shown in the friendship between Max and Clance as Black women finding their way in a racist and sexist society. They are relatable in the ways in which they support and challenge each other, but there is also the layer of Max hiding her sexuality from Clance. Though Clance may hold homophobic beliefs, Max still loves Clance and considers her to be family. In this, the show organically portrays the concept of “found family” that is significant within the queer community but can also be seen within sports teams.CBM: There is also the idea of forced connection in the relationship between Esti Gonzalez (Priscilla Delgado) and Lupe, the two Latina ballplayers on the Peaches team. Here the show acknowledges the presence of players from Cuba in the AAGPBL, women who could pass as white and were expected to uphold the league's expectations of white femininity. Their experiences as women of color, as embodied by Esti and Lupe, differ from those of Max and Clance because they exist within a constructed racial hierarchy that places them above Black women but below white women who do not face racialized discrimination and microaggressions. Due to their shared otherness as Latinas, Lupe and Esti are expected to be best friends but Lupe rejects this, resisting the assumption that she should mentor Esti just because they are both Latina and speak Spanish.MC: Lupe is also queer, so she must carefully navigate these intersecting identities. She and Jess refer to each other as hermano, a term of endearment and support. They use brother rather than sister to acknowledge the idea of brotherhood within sport and the male-dominated narrative in those spaces. It is an interesting language choice that reveals a layering of race, gender, and sexuality and the multiple identities that the characters hold.Any critiques of the show?MC: This may be a minor point, but my biggest disappointment in the show is the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in the baseball scenes. Every time Carson caught the ball and fell back in an exaggerated manner, I found myself yelling at the screen in annoyance. In many of the baseball scenes, especially the tryouts, the fielding and batting were naturally smooth. However, when CGI was used to emphasize the skills of players like Jo and Lupe, it detracted from the athleticism of the actors and perpetuated the idea that women do not have the talent or strength to play baseball. I do not understand why the filmmakers felt compelled to use CGI. The producers hired Justine Siegal, a noted coach and women's baseball advocate, as the baseball coordinator for the show, and she worked for months with the actors on their skills.6 Many of the extras in the baseball scenes were young women who play baseball—not softball—competitively, including some who have played at the collegiate level.7 So, why the need to artificially enhance the athletic action through CGI? These women can play.CBM: On a related note, I also wish the show included an acknowledgment to recognize the extras, the consultants (including Blair and Siegal), and the other women who contributed to the baseball side of the series. Much of this work was driven by women who care deeply about the game and are working to make it more inclusive. The series is a valuable contribution to the historical facets of women's baseball, but we also need to realize that girls and women are playing the game right now. The United States has a national women's baseball team that competes at the Women's Baseball World Cup and in other international tournaments. Increasing numbers of women are playing college baseball on men's teams, the first women's collegiate club baseball championship was held in 2021, and numerous grassroots programs are ensuring that girls have the opportunity to play. The International Women's Baseball Center is currently raising funds to construct a museum and educational center in Rockford. Yet audiences who watch A League of Their Own might not know about any of this. I think the show missed a chance to establish a link between the stories it depicted and the current state of women's baseball.MC: Everyone loves a QR code. Just pop one up on the screen with additional resources, reading lists, organizations promoting women's baseball, places to donate to support efforts to grow the women's game, and opportunities to get involved as a participant, coach, volunteer, or spectator. Women's baseball is not a historical relic—it lives on. Even as we celebrate the past through a show like A League of Their Own, we need to make a commitment to the present and the future of the game.At the time of writing, A League of Their Own has been canceled by Amazon, but fans of the show remain hopeful that it will find a home at a different network. Whether or not it continues, the show is a worthwhile watch for both serious and casual baseball fans, as well as those interested more broadly in women's sport history, queer history, and the experiences of women of color in the Jim Crow Midwest. After watching A League of Their Own, might we suggest a binge of Pitch, Fox's short-lived but engaging 2016 drama about the first woman to play Major League Baseball. The two shows function as effective bookends, one based in history and one in imagination, but we must not stop there. There are many more stories to tell about women in baseball through both formal scholarly means and popular culture. Our younger selves cannot wait to see them.