Pass the popcorn: A League of Their Own

There are certain baseball movies I never fail to watch whenever they’re on TV. Although with some, I find the more I watch, the less entertaining they seem and the more annoyed I get.

Case in point: A League of Their Own.

For the most part, I still love this film. But the past few viewings have left me cringing when certain pieces of dialogue come up. (Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of the final screenplay handy, so this is basically paraphrasing.) For example;

most of the lines spouted by candy tycoon Walter Harvey (played by director Penny Marshall’s father, Gary) and Ira Lowenstein (David Strathairn)
Mae Mordabito’s (Madonna) “I ain’t going back to taxi dancing” bit
Doris Murphy (Rosie O’Donnell’s) dad chatting up the loquacious scalper (“She’s the best player they’ve got after the game I’m gonna surprise her, take her out for a steak dinner. Ha ha ha.”)
the PA announcer, played by David Lander (Squiggy (or was it Lenny), from Penny’s Laverne and Shirley days, trying to mimic Red Barber and doing a lousy job
any of the voice-overs in the back ground
all of the hand-shaking to indicate that a throw was really really hard
the Western Union guy– could anyone in tat job really be that callous?
the horrible voice-overs at the end of the movie for the now-older players. People’s voices do change over time, Go natural!
and Dottie (Geena Davis) telling her pitcher in the World Series that sister Kit (Lori Petty) — traded to the opposition — loves the high pitches but can’t hit them. After almost a whole season, don’t you thing the Peaches would know each others’ proclivities?

On the other hand, these are a few of my favorite scenes:

There’s also the train station farewell between Marla Hooch and her dad. “Nothing is ever going to happen here,” he tells her when she expresses second thoughts about going to the tryouts. Sniff, sniff. Makes me think of my own daughter who’ll be off to college next fall. Sorry, in many cases, parting is not sweet sorrow, it just sucks.

Here’s a nifty little documentary about the film

But here’s a real gem I just discovered: a deleted scene — a few actually — that considers a different relationship between Dottie and manager Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), plus the return of Marla Hooch! But see if you agree with me that the final version works better than had they left them in.