There's No Crying in Baseball!

July 1, 1992.

"May our feet be swift; May are bats be mighty; May our balls...be plentiful"


That's right, its been 20 years since the release of one of the greatest (baseball) films ever made.  Perhaps THE greatest baseball film.  I'm partial to a few, but this one is in elite company.  You know how people say, "oh I've seen that movie a hundred times."?  That's pretty unlikely if you really think about it.

Well, I've seen this movie a hundred times.

And I could watch it a hundred more.  The cast is excellent.  The script is superb.  The comedic timing is classic.  And the baseball is real.

You can bet almost anything with Tom Hanks is going to be solid, but his role as Jimmy Dugan is so spot on it makes you want to put on a helmet, grab a bat and swing away (and if you recall, the sign for that is the letters).  He is one of my favorite movie characters.  I even have a signed Jimmy Dugan baseball (Thank you Patrick).  Supposedly Dugan is loosely based on Jimmie Foxx, and even though he never played for Chicago, he did coach in the women's baseball league and Dugan's stats at the end of the movie are somewhat similar to Foxx's.

There's more funny lines in this movie than I care to type up right now, but I'm pretty sure I use at least one of them daily.  And I'd recommend you do the same.  Tell me you don't want to be at work and tell one of your co-workers to "Start using your head.  That's the lump that's 3 feet above your ass!"  Ok, maybe thats a little harsh for the workplace.  But maybe at a church league softball game or something.

Maybe it's been a while since you've seen it; Maybe it hasn't.  But today I encourage you to find the time to watch A League of Their Own again.  Even if you've seen it a hundred times.

Towards the end of the movie when the team is getting on the bus to go to the World Series, Jimmy finds Dottie and her husband loading up the car to drive back home to Oregon.  He approaches her and tries to coax her into finishing out the season, rather then "sneaking out; quitting."  It's here that Dugan delivers the best line of the entire movie...

I have a lot of passion for the game of baseball.  I take a lot of pride in, and am thankful for, the fact I got to play it almost everyday of my life for as long as I did.  I enjoy the times I get to talk baseball with you guys, and I very much consider myself a "baseball guy."  And even though I've seen this movie so many times, it never fails.  Damn it if I don't find my eyes trying to water up just a bit.  And In my head I'm giving the proverbial tip of the cap towards the screen.

Sounds pretty silly I know, but I feel like some of you get it.  As Jimmy Dugan gives it one more attempt to convince Dottie she will regret it for the rest of her life if she quits baseball like this, she says,

"...It just got too hard"


"It's supposed to be hard.  If it wasn't hard everyone would do it.  The hard...is what makes it great."


Jimmy is right, there's no crying in baseball.  But it almost gets me every time.