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

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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#6) The Film Was Once Meant To Be Produced By 20th Century Fox, With David Anspaugh As The Director

  Marshall had a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop A League of Their Own, but when Joe Roth was named the head of the studio, he asked Marshall to give up the baseball project.

  "That was my fatal error," Roth admitted to the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “Penny was working on Awakenings at the time and, in my haste to get some movies going, I took the project away. I loved the material, but I soon lost confidence in David Anspaugh [Hoosiers], who I’d brought on to direct."

  Unhappy with his choice of director and frustrated about not finding the right actor for the project, Roth ended up putting A League of Their Own into turnaround, allowing Columbia to pick up the project for Marshall to direct when she left Fox for Columbia in 1990.
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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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  (#10) Madonna

  • Band/Musician

  In the early 1990s, Madonna was a huge star. She had been nominated for multiple Grammy (and other) awards, and each of her first four studio albums had gone multi-platinum in the United States. She had nine singles top the Billboard Hot 100 and completed two successful world tours. She had also been in several films, most notably Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Dick Tracy (1990). Still, when it came to casting her in A League of Their Own, some of the executives at Columbia Pictures weren't sure whether she would be able to handle a sizable role. 

  "There's still some dispute about whether she's a 'movie star,'" a Columbia Pictures executive told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. "The feeling is that, surrounded by the right people, she's fine. The big question is whether she can take on a big role and carry it off on her own."

  Marshall thought of casting Madonna in A League of Their Own after the actor chosen to play All the Way Mae dropped out of the film. Madonna was eager to be in the film, and when producer Robert Greenhut warned her she wouldn't be paid very much, she replied that she wanted to diversify her career. Greenhut recalled that she took her role very seriously, and that although he had to occasionally reprimand her for being late to the set, she was determined to do a good job.

  Lori Petty told The Ringer that Madonna was such a huge star at the time that she wasn't even sure how to address her. "We were like, what are we even supposed to call her. We can't call her Madonna! That's like calling her the Empire State Building!" But sharing a makeup trailer with Madonna helped Petty relax around her. Madonna even confessed to the other actors that she hadn't been confident that she was going to become a huge star.

  Marshall also didn't know how to act around the superstar singer. "I couldn't get the word 'Madonna' out," she wrote in her memoir. Her solution was to deal with Madonna and O'Donnell in the same breath as "Ro and Mo."

  Davis was another person who wasn't sure what to expect, telling USA Today in 2017, "She was Madonna. We wondered if we were going to be able to talk to her. Was she going to have an entourage? Were they going to put up walls around her where she stands?" But the actor went on to state that the singer fit in well, training hard for her role and doing her own stunts like sliding head-first into the bases.

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