A League of Their Own (1992): 27 Hidden Facts You Didn't Know

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of A League of Their Own (1992), Penny Marshall's comedy about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and the real wartime history it pulled back into view. This video covers 27 stories from the production. The lead role of Dottie passed through several actresses, from Demi Moore and Debra Winger to Geena Davis, before filming began. Tom Hanks was asked to gain weight rather than slim down for Jimmy Dugan, and built much of the character's backstory himself. The cast trained for months at a real baseball camp and did their own playing, which left genuine injuries behind the makeup. The most quoted line in the film was nearly cut, Jon Lovitz's scout was written to order, and friction around Madonna's casting shaped the shoot. It also looks at the true history under the comedy: the candy magnate who helped start the league, the charm-school rules lifted straight from the record, the ballparks rebuilt to look like 1943, the brief nod to baseball's color line, and the real Dorothy Kamenshek behind Dottie. Plus the deleted scenes, the darker ending that was abandoned, the film's box-office milestone, its place in the National Film Registry, and the short-lived 1993 TV series.