["I remember A League Of Their Own, and I specifically remember
not seeing women that looked like me on that team," said Chanté
Adams. Now she gets to play one.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

AMAZON’S ‘A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN’ SERIES OFFERS UNTOLD STORIES
ABOUT BLACK WOMEN IN BASEBALL  
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Audra Heinrichs
August 11, 2022
Jezebel
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_ "I remember A League Of Their Own, and I specifically remember not
seeing women that looked like me on that team," said Chanté Adams.
Now she gets to play one. _

, Photo: Amazon Prime Video Pressroom

 

_Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for Amazon’s _A League
Of Their Own_._

There’s a 15-second scene near the end of the 1992 film, _A League
Of Their Own,_ that flies by as swiftly as one of Kit Keller’s
(Lori Petty) fast balls, yet delivers the kind of sting its director,
Penny Marshall, deemed necessary
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In it, a lone baseball falls beyond the periphery of the diamond
wherein the film’s protagonists, a real life women’s professional
baseball team known as the Rockford Peaches, are playing. Just outside
the white chalked lines stands a cluster of bystanders, all of whom
are Black—their role as nonparticipants is made plain.

“Right here,” catcher Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) calls out to one
of the Black women who’s picked up the ball. But the bystander
doesn’t throw it back to Hinson; she hurls it even further, straight
and hard into the mitt of another Peach, who then pulls her hand out
of her glove and shakes off the shock of the catch. Hinson offers an
eyebrow raise, and the woman simply nods in return, as if to say,
“I’m here, too, and I’m good.” Without uttering a word,
she’s a revelation. Nevertheless, audiences never see her again.

Chanté Adams, who stars in the new Amazon Prime Video update of the
cult-classic, told Jezebel she’s always remembered that scene. Now,
she has the opportunity to tell the story of the Black women who were
sidelined by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
(AAGPBL). “As a little girl, I was so happy to see myself on the
screen, and then I immediately became sad, because we don’t follow
her,” Adams recalled to Jezebel during a visit to our Manhattan
office. “I wanted to know where she was going. How did she come to
love baseball? How did her arm get like that?”

A League of Their Own - Official Trailer | Prime Video

The eight-episode dramedy created by Abbi Jacobson (_Broad City_) and
Will Graham (_Mozart in the Jungle_) serves as both the answer to many
of the questions posed by its predecessor and its
all-too-eager-to-imitate little sister. Told through the respective
lenses of Carson Shaw (Jacobson), an unhappy housewife fleeing the
ennui of Idaho, and Maxine “Max” Chapman (Adams), the Black and
Queer daughter of a god-fearing mother with lofty aspirations of
pitching in the Negro leagues, the series seeks to summon the magic of
the cult-classic film whilst creating some of its own. Thanks to
standout performances from Adams and D’arcy Carden as bombshell
Greta Gill, a charming ensemble, and a satisfyingly rich story arc, it
mostly succeeds—even if parts occasionally land like a twee version
of Netflix’s _GLOW_.

It’s no coincidence that when audiences first meet Jacobson’s
Shaw, who is basically _Broad City_’s Abbi existing in 1943,
she’s running—literally towards a train that will take her
straight to tryouts for the AAGPBL, but figuratively from her life as
a deeply unfulfilled wife to a kind, albeit boring, man fighting in
World War II. Upon arrival, she crosses paths with best friends Gill
and Jo DeLuca (Melanie Fields), who are an apparent (albeit less
bawdy) nod to Madonna’s, “All the Way” Mae Mordabito and Rosie
O’Donnell’s, Doris Murphy. Inevitably, all three become Peaches,
as do a talented number of others. However, Chapman, a local hopeful
with an arm like a cannon, is promptly booted from the field upon her
arrival at tryouts.

“When Max gets kicked off the field in that first episode, that is a
story that actually happened to Mamie Johnson,” Adams told Jezebel.
Jacobson says the character of Chapman is an amalgamation of three
trailblazers in the Negro leagues: Johnson, Toni Stone, and Connie
Morgan.

“When I first received the email to audition, I was a little
hesitant, because I remember _A League Of Their Own, _and I
specifically remember not seeing women that looked like me on that
team,” said Adams. “But then I read the stories, and I realized it
was not going to be a remake and that it was going to be completely
new stories, new characters. Once I got the part and met with Will and
Abbi, they explained to me that my character was actually based on
real women, and what they were doing was creating a show about a
generation of women who played baseball—not the All-American Girls
League, or the Peaches. Those people are included in the show because
they were such an integral part of that generation, but they weren’t
the _only_ part. That’s where Max’s story comes in.”

Chapman’s story, from the first episode to the last, is marred by
both personal and professional strife. Unfortunately, she spends much
of the series looking for a team that will treat her talent with the
seriousness it deserves. Eventually, she finds it, but Chapman must
first complete 10 times the labor—physical and psychological—of
any of the Peaches. At the midseason climax, she and Shaw strike up a
relationship adjacent to friendship and begin practicing together in
the middle of the night. Simultaneously, the pair are grappling with
their queer identity within their respective opposing worlds, during a
time when queerness was criminalized and stigmatized to the point of
gay panic (still a relevant theme, unfortunately). By this point, Shaw
has already embarked on a lusty affair with Gill, while Chapman first
carries on in secret with the wife of the hometown pastor and, later,
a fellow pitcher from the Negro leagues.

Even as the Peaches struggle with sexist ownership, press and and
hecklers, and, for much of the team, being closeted, viewers are
frequently—and poignantly—reminded that Chapman’s trajectory as
a Black, woman will always be more fraught, due in part because with
the exception of her family and best friend, Clance Morgan (the
exquisite Gbemisola Ikumelo), she is all she has to depend on in an
industry—and a society—largely unwilling to validate, let alone
acknowledge, her existence.

“Max is a Black woman trying to make her way in this white,
male-dominated field, as is every Black woman in the world,” Adams
told me. “Being able to put that representation on screen is really
important.”

Of course, the season ends on a high note for the majority of the main
players, complete with firm friendships, touching romantic
relationships and a team for Chapman. It’s almost easy not to notice
that Jacobson and Graham took certain liberties: For example, midway
through the series, the Peaches’ coach, the otherwise forgettable
Nick Offerman abandons the team, leaving Shaw to take over. Given the
precariousness of the league and management’s demonstrated disdain
for women, allowing one of the players to serve as a replacement for
him feels like a stretch.

That’s not even the series’ cardinal sin, however. At times, _A
League Of Their Own _appears as if caught in a pickle, fumbling as it
attempts to mimic its predecessor and mine its own new territory. When
Tom Hanks’ immortal proclamation “There’s no crying in
baseball!” makes its appearance in the show, as Shaw weeps
white-woman tears upon being confronted by Lupe “the Spanish
Striker” García, the moment is not exactly a home run. The same can
be said for a few of the characters who seem mere caricatures of those
from which Jacobson and Graham drew inspiration.

Regardless, _A League Of Their Own_ is a promising series that’s
undoubtedly at its best when it allows its ensemble to do what the
original couldn’t: tell the largely untold stories of women of color
and queer femmes in the history of America’s favorite pastime.

“To be that character that little Black girls will see, and then
feel happy because after I throw that ball, we’re going to continue
to follow the story, is really special,” Adams said.

* A League of Their Own
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* amazon prime
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* amazon prime
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* race disparity
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* Black History
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