Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From ‘A League of Their Own,’ Most Rewatchable Sports Movi (17 items)

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  (#5) Tom Hanks

  • Actor

  In 2012, Penny Marshall told an audience at the Hudson Union Society that Tom Hanks asked to play the part of Jimmy Dugan, the heavy-drinking former MLB star turned reluctant manager of the Rockford Peaches. At the time, Hanks was coming off of two flop films, The 'Burbs and Joe Versus the Volcano.

  Dugan was originally supposed to be a man in his 50s, but Hanks reportedly talked Marshall into making the character younger. The director was worried that a younger Dugan would be too appealing to the audience, so as a compromise Hanks packed on about 30 pounds to make the character more slovenly. "I had to get fat. I had to gain some weight," the actor told Entertainment Tonight in 1992. "I had BBQ pork ribs and enjoyed the desserts of America."
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  (#15) Balls With Soft Centers Were Used In Many Of The Scenes

  In the scenes where the characters are shown batting, balls with soft centers were used instead of hard ones. Davis explained to USA Today that the precaution was taken in order to protect the crew:

  You’re actually hitting in the direction of the camera crew. For close-ups, those balls were squishy. They looked like real baseballs, but they were all spongy inside so we wouldn’t clock anyone.
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  (#7) Demi Moore And Debra Winger Were Both In The Running To Play Dottie

  A League of Their Own could have ended up with a much different cast. When the film was still in development at Fox, Jim Belushi was in line to play the part of Jimmy Dugan. In her memoir, My Mother Was Nuts, Marshall claims the film's original director, David Anspaugh, wanted Sean Young to play Dottie. Marshall's first choice to play Dottie was Demi Moore, but she dropped out of consideration due to her pregnancy.

  With Moore unavailable, Columbia Pictures was eager for Debra Winger and Madonna to play the roles of Dottie and Kit, respectively. In her memoir, Marshall claims that Winger dropped out of the film because she didn't want to work with the famous singer. Moira Kelly actually got cast as Kit, but had to drop out after she was injured while filming The Cutting Edge.

  Anne Ramsay, who ended up playing the role of Rockford first baseman Helen Haley, originally auditioned for the film when Anspaugh was still attached to direct. As Ramsay told ESPNW in 2017, she auditioned again years later, after Marshall had been reunited with the project: 

  I did well in my audition with Penny, but she could not place me. And she just couldn't figure out how to fit me in for one of the roles that were already in the scripts. And I mean, she had me come in at least five times. One time she goes, "Wash off all of your makeup." I walk to the bathroom in the middle of the audition. She was trying to see me differently, fit me somewhere. I could tell she liked me but couldn't figure it out! Then I get a call from the casting department saying that Penny loved me but couldn't figure out where to put me. Then the casting agent says, "Penny is going to write a role so that you can be in the film."

  While Lori Petty ended up winning the role of Kit, Schram was one of the other actors to audition for that part. "I sat there thinking, 'I'm not right for this,'" she told ESPNW. "But I read for it and wasn't very good. So they then say, 'Hey, we'll have you read for this other role.' And that was for Evelyn, the one that cried. Then I did it, and I knew I nailed it. In my heart and mind, I was like, 'I'm going to get this role.'" Schram was right; she was cast as right fielder Evelyn Gardner.

  Like Anne Ramsay, Megan Cavanagh originally auditioned for the film when Fox was still the studio involved and Anspaugh was set to direct. The actor, who ended up playing the role of second baseman Marla Hooch, described the unusual callback she was part of after Marshall returned to the project:

  They asked all the actresses to be prepared to read other roles; it was a group audition. At this time, Debra Winger was the part of Dottie - not Geena Davis. So it was Debra and Lori Petty. I got invited to this audition with women who had already been cast in the movie, so that was pretty exciting... As I was leaving the audition, Rosie O'Donnell [who was already cast for the role of Doris Murphy] followed me out and said, "Listen, you're the best Marla we've seen so far."

  O’Donnell herself read for multiple roles before being cast as third baseman Doris Murphy.
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  (#1) No One Thought That 'There's No Crying In Baseball!' Would Become A Classic Movie Line

  Decades after audiences first heard Jimmy Duggan scream, "There's no crying in baseball!" the quote remains a fixture in pop culture. However, screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel never thought the scene would continue to be quoted years after the film's release.

  The intent of the scene, the screenwriters told ESPNW in 2017, was to show how different the cultures of men's and women's baseball were. "We never said, 'And then there will be this great scene where the coach says, "There's no crying in baseball,"'" Ganz claimed. He added that the line didn't come from knowing that Tom Hanks would be playing the manager; it was in the very first draft of the script, well before the actor had been cast.

  Bitty Schram, who played Evelyn Gardner, the right fielder who breaks down in tears when she is berated by her manager for missing the cutoff man, said that the scene was filmed out of sequence and took numerous takes to get right. "What kind of sucked was that they had to fix my face for the next take because I couldn't look like I'm crying before I'm crying," Schram told ESPNW. The actor admitted she couldn't stand to watch the scene when she went to the film's premiere because "it made me nauseous. All I could see is 'Oh, they pick the take where I look like I was crying before' or 'Tom is great, but look at my f***ing double chin.' That's all I think about."

  Geena Davis said she always thought the line was very funny, but never thought it would become as iconic as it has: "That line is a signature. Right up there with 'Hasta la vista, baby.'"
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  (#4) Several Of The Characters Were Directly Based On Real People

  The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was a real league that existed from 1943 to 1954. So it's not a surprise that several of the characters were based on or inspired by real people. 

  Davis's character Dottie Hinson was inspired by Dorothy "Dottie" Kamenshek, who played for the real Rockford Peaches, although she was a left-handed-hitting first baseman, while Davis's Dottie batted right-handed and was a catcher. While the fictional Dottie retired after one season, Kamenshek was a seven-time All-Star and two-time batting champion, and holds the AAGPBL's record for career hits.

  Tom Hanks's character, Jimmy Dugan, was based on baseball Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx and Hack Wilson, both of whom had their careers shortened at least in part because of their heavy drinking. After his playing career ended, Foxx spent one season (1952) as a manager of the AAGPBL's Fort Wayne Daisies.

  The part of Walter Harvey (played by Garry Marshall), the league founder/candy manufacturer, was based on the man who founded the real AAGPBL: the Chicago Cubs owner/chewing gum manufacturer, Philip K. Wrigley.
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  (#16) A Chance Encounter With Neil Simon's Brother Inspired The 'Rival Sisters' Plot And A Specific Line In The Film

  Marshall became interested in making a feature film on the AAGPBL after seeing a short documentary about the league. The documentary's creators were invited to be involved in turning the story of the AAGPBL into a feature film. In fact, one of the documentary's creators had family members who had played in the league. "My mother was an outfielder, and my mother's sister was a second baseman," Kelly Candaele told ESPNW in 2017. But for the plot of the feature film script, "there was more potential for conflict and a dramatic arc by making [the characters of Dottie and Kit] a pitcher and a catcher."

  Candaele's mother and aunt were not the only influences for how scriptwriters Mandel and Ganz developed the characters of the sisters. Mandel explained that when he randomly ran into Neil Simon's mother and brother one day, the woman introduced her son by saying, "This is Neil Simon's brother." The encounter influenced an early scene in the film in which Kit asks her older sister, "You ever hear Dad introduce us to people? 'This is our daughter Dottie, and this is our other daughter, Dottie's sister.'"

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