When A League Of Their Own hit theaters in 1992, it was a breath of fresh, Cracker-Jack-scented air for female viewers everywhere who had spent their lives being told they were “too much.” Lowell Ganz and the late, great Penny Marshall delivered a film that was simultaneously a feel-good crowd-pleaser, rip-roaring sports drama, and classic ensemble comedy. But it was also an emotionally resonant drama about headstrong women getting their shot at the (literal) big leagues in an era when they’d otherwise have been confined to the kitchen or secretarial pool.
Three decades later, Prime Video is returning to 1943 Rockford, Illinois, with this winning series adaptation. Like the movie, it follows the members of the Rockford Peaches, a real-life team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a short-lived organization that was founded during World War II to keep the national pastime alive while many male players were off fighting overseas.
Co-created by Abbi Jacobson (Broad City)—who also stars—and Will Graham (Mozart In The Jungle), the new League follows the team through its first season. But don’t expect facsimiles of Geena Davis, Lori Petty, and Tom Hanks’ iconic characters. This is a whole different crop of Peaches. And since times have (thankfully) changed since the film premiered, the series doesn’t shy away from exploring the racism that was rampant in 1940s America, as well as the reality that a lot of these women who grew up honing their pitching arms instead of their baking skills were very, very queer.
The comedy-drama centers on dual protagonists who take very different paths to the baseball diamond: Carson Shaw (Jacobson), a white woman from Iowa who, while her husband is away at war, hops a train to Illinois to join the Peaches, and Max Chapman (Chanté Adams), a Black woman with a killer pitching arm who gets iced out of the AAGPBL because of her skin color. While Carson rises through the ranks of the team, Max struggles to reconcile her frustrated ambitions with her duties at her mother Toni’s (Saidah Arrika Ekulona) hair salon.
While these two women’s lives look very different, they have one big thing in common: they’re both queer and closeted, embarking on romantic adventures and coming into their own while also doing their best to protect themselves in an era when so-called “sexual inverts” could find themselves committed to psychiatric asylums—or worse.
The series’ scope is wide, however, and it devotes time and care to a vast array of characters. To name just a few, there’s Greta (D’Arcy Carden), Carson’s love interest whose natural charm conceals a lifetime’s worth of baggage; Max’s best friend Clance (Gbemisola Ikumelo), who dreams of drawing her own superhero comics; and Lupe (Roberta Colindrez) and Esti (Priscilla Delgado), the Peaches’ only Latina players, who must navigate a whole different brand of racism than the series’ Black characters.
That the show effortlessly weaves this diverse tapestry of women’s stories is no easy feat. But League is funny as hell to boot, using a quasi-contemporary conversation style and modern slang (“Fucking fuckers!”) that feels oddly at home in the 1940s setting. (“My husband is in the war … that’s now,” Carson mutters at one point.) That also extends to the show’s soundtrack, which features artists from the era like Benny Goodman mixed in with rock bangers from Heart and the Runaways, plus ’70s soul from Maxine Weldon and Irma Thomas.
This mashup of styles and genres lands largely thanks to the series’ MVP cast. Jacobson basically plays a 1940s version of her Broad City character, but it works: Like Abbi, Carson is caught between her ambitions and insecurities, only facing much higher stakes. She shares a crackling chemistry with The Good Place breakout D’Arcy Carden, who’s magnetic as Greta. Meanwhile, small-screen rookie Adams proves herself to be a rising star to watch, carrying her half of the series with style and pathos. The ensemble is a mix of comedy faves (Kate Berlant, Nick Offerman, Nat Faxon) and acting stalwarts (Dale Dickey, Ekulona, Colindrez) that, together, make for a compelling rogues’ gallery.
Maybe most importantly for fans of the original movie, this League is also a good old-fashioned underdog sports drama, complete with training montages, rousing locker room speeches, and edge-of-your-seat home runs. Directors like Jamie Babbit (But I’m A Cheerleader) and Anya Adams (Fresh Off The Boat) create a compelling, dynamic visual style, tracking fastballs and back-room trysts with equal interest. And don’t worry: we do get a reminder that there is, in fact, no crying in baseball.
With its compelling character arcs, natural comedic chemistry, and attention to period details and social issues, A League Of Their Own seems to be the heir apparent to Netflix’s GLOW, another female-centric sports dramedy. And while that series was canceled before its time, we have a feeling that League is only just getting started.