Movie About a Girl Playing Baseball Go Peaches
No Madonna. No Geena Davis. But Still in a League of Their Own.
SOUTH ELGIN, Ill. — Strike one. "You swing like a girl!" the pitcher barked, heckling yet another player at the plate. Sonja Bushnick of the Rockford Peaches lifted her wooden bat again. She passed on one ball and fouled off another. On the next pitch she hit a short pop-up that the pitcher caught with ease. He laughed at her.
The pitcher — wearing suspenders, a necktie and a newsboy cap — was Jody McQuarters, the husband of the Peaches right fielder and a designated ham. At the sound of gunfire from a nearby military re-enactment, he pretended he had been shot in the backside and limped around the infield.
Bushnick walked back to the bench with her head held high. There were no hurt feelings. She and her teammates, like the Peaches of the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own," know that there is no crying in baseball.
The latest incarnation of the team plays softball instead of baseball, as did the original Peaches for most of their existence in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and '50s. The current roster consists primarily of two types of players: longtime athletes in their 30s, 40s and 50s who still crave time on the diamond and history buffs devoted to reproducing moments from another era.
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Many games, like the one here in South Elgin in June, coincide with World War II re-enactments and rely on players recruited from the crowd, including men who cross over from the military scenes. Jody McQuarters filled in as a Peaches opponent on the mound, temporarily abandoning his usual role.
"We use him as our manager-owner," said his wife, Cathy McQuarters. The couple, like most everyone else connected with the Peaches, live in the Chicago area. "He dresses up in the business attire, and most of the time we use him for pitching. I didn't know he was this good at baseball until I wanted to re-enact."
The Peaches were reborn about seven years ago as part of the WWII Girls Baseball Living History League, a tribute to the league that was founded in 1943 and that was recreated on screen with Madonna in the outfield, Geena Davis behind the plate and Tom Hanks in the dugout, managing the team with a memorable emphasis on no tears.
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Rebecca Tulloch, who conducts historical presentations at schools and libraries, founded the new league. In 2009, she bought a replica of an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League uniform.
"After I got the uniform," she said, "'I'm like 'Gosh, I'd really like to play ball in this.'"
Tulloch knew of men's baseball leagues that dressed up in vintage uniforms and played by old-time rules, but she could not find any groups recreating the games played by women during the World War II era. So she made an obvious decision: She formed a league of her own.
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Tulloch started recruiting by word of mouth, aiming for a league composed of the four original teams: the Rockford Peaches, the South Bend Blue Sox, the Racine Belles and the Kenosha Comets. So far only the Peaches have been reconstituted; this summer, about 20 players have regularly participated.
"My dream is to eventually have all four teams filled with players," Tulloch said. "Then we can have a real league where teams play each other at events, and then have a championship at the end, like the original league."
The league's uniforms and equipment are, as much as possible, faithful reproductions of items from the World War II era. Players scour eBay and antique stores for vintage gloves and bats. In the dugout here, there was a bucket filled with smooth-worn pancake gloves.
"They are teeny," said Jamie Mulvihill, who has played softball most of her life and, when there weren't enough girls for a team, spent a season on a boys' baseball team. "They definitely bring you back to the Little League days where you catch with two hands 'cause the ball will fall out and bop you if you don't."
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Proper softballs can be hard to procure. They must be 12 inches in circumference, the biggest size produced, white and made of real leather. With the prevalence of Optic Yellow softballs today, white ones have become less popular, and they tend to be made of synthetic leather. A dozen white leather 12-inch balls cost around $80, compared with $30 for a synthetic dozen.
During the game here, an infantry re-enactor hit a foul ball that flew into the nearby Fox River. It was not recovered.
"A lot of people don't realize that when the league started in 1943, they didn't play baseball, like in the movie 'A League of their Own,'" Tulloch said. "They were playing 12-inch underhand fast-pitch softball, the reason being because none of the women knew how to play baseball."
Only during the league's last couple of years, after the war had ended, did the women switch to baseball — partly in hopes of making the games exciting enough to attract fans of the reinvigorated major leagues.
"I wouldn't join another team after this. This is the best. I love 12-inch," Joy Hyzny, a player in her early 50s, said as she tossed a ball with her teammate Kathy Suyko, firing it hard enough to make a smacking sound in Suyko's antique glove. "My high school team went down to 8, and after that, there was no more 12-inch — I couldn't find it in the area. I love it. It's such a great group of women. All ages, diverse backgrounds. It's so much fun."
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The players' footwear gets a pass on authenticity. Everyone wears modern black athletic shoes or cleats, but the logos must be blotted out. Jenny Hale blackened the swoosh symbol on her Nikes. She also wore retro sunglasses that were in style during the World War II years. She said she became interested in the Peaches when she spotted them at a fair.
"I joined them first for a September or October game, and it was on the original Peaches field," Hale said. "It was sort of surreal because I really like the movie and the whole era."
Her sister, Lisa Hale, was sitting out because of a shoulder injury. Instead of dressing up as a player, she wore a white blouse and a pencil skirt to play the role of the chaperone, a character in the movie. She described her job: "Escort the team on away games. Make sure they are not doing anything unsavory. No drinking, no men, no smoking. Always wear your lipstick."
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The season runs from late April to early autumn, and this one included the 25th anniversary of the film. Next year the tribute league plans to honor the 75th anniversary of the original league's inception. Players from the wartime games have held several reunions, some attended by actresses from the movie, including Anne Ramsay, Kathleen Marshall and Megan Cavanagh. Current Peaches have also shown up.
"You think we're having fun? They must have had a blast," said Tulloch, who has been to three reunions. "For being 80 and 90 years old, when they go to these reunions, I think it takes them back to their 20s because their eyes light up and they are 20 again. It's fantastic."
At the end of the game in South Elgin, the modern-day Peaches gathered for a team photo. There was no smartphone or fancy digital camera. Instead, in their commitment to historical accuracy, they smiled at a Kodak Brownie.
Movie About a Girl Playing Baseball Go Peaches
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/sports/baseball/no-madonna-no-geena-davis-but-still-in-a-league-of-their-own.html
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