No crying in baseball The making of A League of Their Own: big stars, dugout drama, and a home run for Hollywood

Entertainment journalist Carlson (I'll Have What She's Having, 2017; Queen Meryl, 2019) sets her sights on Penny Marshall's 1992 biopic about the All-Americans, the women's baseball league that existed from 1943 to 1954. Having done her homework and loads of interviews, Carlson begins with Marshall, who, despite early favors from her brother, Garry, already in the biz, more than fought for her career and for this film in particular, and covers the league's history, particularly through the story of two sisters not unlike the characters Dottie and Kit. With the standard who's who of behind-the-scenes players and the drama whizzing by, this is deliriously fun stuff, from the parade of celebrities who tried out (especially those "Team Penny" deemed unconvincing as athletes) to a kiss that ended up on the cutting room floor to Geena Davis' idea for a spinoff TV series that Carlson (rightly) thinks the Ted Lasso team should start making, stat. Carlson also notes the movie's lesser moments, like jokes about a character's appearance, and its missed opportunity to be an overtly queer film. Epic fan service and undeniable movie-history magic.

This gossipy outing by entertainment journalist Carlson (Queen Meryl) details the making of the 1992 film A League of Their Own. She describes how director Penny Marshall drew inspiration from a documentary, also titled A League of Their Own, about the WWII-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and enlisted veteran comedy writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel after failing to stir up interest from women screenwriters. Behind-the-scenes stories include star Geena Davis struggling to get a handle on the sport's basics and Madonna complaining about being "dirty all day" from filming scenes on Wrigley Field. Elsewhere, Carlson discusses how Rosie O'Donnell refused Marshall's request that she lose weight for her role, Marshall's decision to cut a kissing scene between Geena Davis's and Toms Hanks's characters, and how the film beat the studio's box office expectations. Fans will enjoy the on-set anecdotes, though some of the more tangential stories--about, for instance, Marshall doing LSD with Carrie Fisher in the 1980s or renting her guest house to Richard Dreyfuss--feel like fluff. Still, this connects more than it misses. (Sept.)

A peek behind the scenes of the hit movie A League of Their Own and the life of its director, Penny Marshall. Entertainment journalist Carlson, author of I'll Have What She's Having and Queen Meryl, tells the story of a beloved film that chronicled the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, an all-women's league of white baseball players that lasted from 1943 to 1954. While the movie became an instant classic--not to mention the most financially lucrative baseball movie of all time, "more than Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, The Natural, 42, and Moneyball"--fans would be hard-pressed to recognize it in its original form. For example, the film, which stars Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna, and Tom Hanks, originally had a much different cast, including Debra Winger in Davis' role and Jim Belushi in Hanks' role. It also had a more complex plot, which included an illicit kiss between Hanks and Davis. The scene, which was included in the script, was deleted from the 2 million feet of film director Marshall insisted on shooting. The film, "a mere footnote in the Tom Hanks film library, was Penny's pinnacle, even as it eclipsed her stardom." Although the text meanders between filming decisions and on-set gossip--at one point, Marshall threatened to write Madonna out of the movie because of her bad behavior--the focus continually returns to Marshall, beginning with her childhood in the Bronx and ending with her 2018 death from "complications related to diabetes." Consequently, the book feels more like a biography rather than a pure history of the film, and the sections about the nuts-and-bolts of the movie more like a list of trivia than a true narrative. Still, the author's playful tone and narratorial asides make this a charming read. An uneven but often entertaining look at a memorable movie and the unique woman who directed it. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.