There’s no doubt that A League of Their Own is a wonderful movie. It ranks on many lists of the best sports movies of all time, and CinemaBlend's own Mack Rawden would tell you it's a 5/5. It’s also a sports movie spearheaded by an excellent group of actresses, and not male-centric, as most sports stories are. It’s a snapshot of the world at war and has a nineties feel to it in one fell swoop, and it’s a movie I’ve turned to again and again throughout my life. However, I’d forgotten how angry I get at Dottie while watching.
If you’ve clicked on this article, doubtless you’ve seen A League of Their Own before (but there will be some spoilers in this article). You probably remember that Dottie (Geena Davis) is reticent to even try out for the All-American League, but her kid sister Kit (Lori Petty) convinces her so she, too, can land a tryout. As such, it should be no real surprise that when her husband returns from war, she’s ready to quit the league and go home to make babies. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. Motherhood is not a footnote; it's a gift in one’s life. But I cannot begin to express how upset I get when Dottie quits before the season is over!
One thing I noticed while rewatching the movie during Women's History Month is that A League of Their Own gets the nuances of being female spot-on. Dottie has conflicting priorities: those to her husband, those to her family on the farm, those to being the poster girl for the league, and those as a leader on her team, the Rockford Peaches. It's just that she treats them in that order, too.
Article continues belowThe thing is, her husband could easily have stuck around for a few games after returning home. As a clearly supportive husband, he probably would have done so happily, and this is evidenced in the movie when Bob Hinson (Bill Pullman) comes back with her for the final playoff game. Dottie could have finished out the season as a Peach, and hopefully nabbed the championship, then gone home and set up her home life however it suited her. It didn’t need to be one or the other thing.
She’s making literal sports history, and can’t even be bothered to finish out the obligation she signed up for. It just feels out of keeping with the personality of most athletes, and also not in keeping with the competitive personality Dottie (mostly) has. We see how much she cares about the team when she gets them out of drinking binds, takes over the call signs, and can never seem to agree with Jimmy.
Clearly, there’s some ambiguity in her relationship with Jimmy (Tom Hanks), too, and it represents how we connect with people in different ways, and how life can change on a dime. In fact, I think showing how people can be multifaceted is one of A League of Their Own’s strongest suits. Yet, I feel a deep sense of betrayal every single time Dottie decides to go home.
And her lack of competitive spirit does not end there.
Let’s Talk About The Final Play
One of the major third act footnotes is the fact that Kit is traded to the Racine Belles just in time for the playoffs. When Dottie returns back from her ill-advised jaunt through National Parks on her return trip home, she then has to face off against her sister in the final match.
Kit is not as good at baseball as Dottie is. This is established from the movie’s opening shot and throughout the rest of the movie. Yet, in the final moment, as her sister rounds the corner, Dottie drops the ball, and for 30 years after, A League Of Their Own’s ending has been debated.
The final play between Dottie and Kit is shot in a way that the audience doesn’t know if it was done on accident or on purpose, but given the context of the rest of the movie, I think there’s a clear indication it was done on purpose. Fans love pointing out the moment in the nineties when Dottie goes with her grandkids to the museum event and mentions to her older grandkid that he needs to give his younger brother “a chance to shoot.” It feels like evidence she may have done that for her own sister, even as they hit the big time.
There’s some opposing evidence, from the look on Dottie’s face to the time she told that same grandkid to “kill” his younger brother – as in best him – that would indicate the ball drop is a mistake. However, given everything we know about the sisters leading up to that point, my gut feeling is she threw the play.
To be clear, I get that times were different. Baseball was less important for some of these women than setting up their homesteads was. This is also evidenced when Marla leaves the team after marrying Nelson and getting her happily ever after. I think it’s awesome we get to see this cool moment in history when women could be a part of a one-household income home, but were also able to spread their wings into areas of society that had previously been closed off to them.
Also, the movie’s ambiguity and the ways it asks the audience to read between the lines are its strongest facets. It says a lot about the film that I can be simultaneously so understanding and mad at Dottie at the same time. I just can’t get over her sabotaging her chance to be great at baseball.
Times were different, mentalities were different, and Dottie is certainly a different person than I am. But deep in my soul, I feel like if you sign up for a season, you stick with it, and you give it everything you have. You don’t drop balls, literally or figuratively.
Catch A League of Their Own streaming with a Peacock subscription if you haven't seen the 1992 film in a while.
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