A League of Her Own

Last Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the release of Penny Marshall's classic sports movie, "A League of Their Own."  Hard to fathom, right?

I love that movie, in part because of its "watchability" - meaning it's possible for me to drop in on it at any point during a cable television rerun, watch a few scenes, then go back to whatever it was that I was doing earlier.  In fairness, I stole that terms and definition from my guy, Bill Simmons, but it is applicable in this case and so many others.

One of my favorite sportswriters, Grantland alumnus Katie Baker, wrote a great piece about the movie for the Ringer last week.  As I was reading it, Jude and I were quoting memorable lines from the movie - "There's no crying in baseball!" - any many others.  We decided it would be a good movie for the boys to watch.

So, over dinner on the 4th of July and last night, as well, we watch A League of Their Own with the boys.  Predictably, they loved it, especially the scenes of the women playing baseball.  As always, it's different for me to watch a movie with J.P. and Joe, because I tend to see it through their eyes.  It was interesting to watch the movie with them, because I thought about it in ways I haven't before.  The movie is more nuanced, I think, than I realized.

J.P. and Joe didn't really follow the significance of the big sister-little sister relationship between Dottie (Geena Davis) and Kit (Lori Petty).  Joe, in particular, picked sides and really, really wanted the Rockford Peaches to win the world series.  As the climactic scene unfolded and Dottie dropped the ball when her sister, Kit, ran her over at home plate to score the winning run and clinch the series for the Racine Belles, Joe burst into tears.  It was priceless.  As he climbed into Jude's arms, sobbing, he said, "I don't like this movie."

I found myself getting emotional as I watched the movie - not just at the predictable moments, like the reunion of the players at the baseball hall of fame - but throughout the movie.  As I thought about it, I realized I saw my mom and her teammates from her days playing basketball for Jim Stockdale and the original Lady Vols' basketball team in Memphis at the University of Tennessee School of Nursing in the late 1950's.

Over the years, I've met so many of her teammates on weekends when my mom hosted them for the Vanderbilt-Lady Vols basketball game at Memorial Gym in Nashville.  For more than a decade in the late 1990's into the 2000's, it was an annual event.  Coach Stockdale and my mom were the driving force behind getting the ladies back together for a weekend that included eating dinner at my mom's house and attending the game.  I remember many conversations with my mom, as she and Coach Stockdale worked to get a block of tickets for the game, made more difficult year after year by the Vanderbilt athletic department's refusal to provide any help.

I attended many of the games with my mom and her teammates, by myself a first, then later with Jude and J.P.  Over the last several years, as it became more and more difficult to purchase tickets and the ladies got older, the annual event quietly disappeared.  That makes me sad, because I loved to hear Coach Stockdale and the ladies talk about their years of playing 6-on-6 women's basketball as the original Lady Vols.  He always laughed and said my mom - who plays only defense - had the sharpest elbows on the team.  She was quite a defensive player and a good rebounder.

As I may have mentioned, one of my mom's teammates, Colleen Burke, called me out of the blue last Friday.  She had spoken to Coach Stockdale and learned my mom wasn't doing well.  She was in town and wanted to stop by and see her.  Her kindness in a simple telephone call to me while I was eating lunch at work brought me to tears then, just as it is as I write this now.

Those ladies - the original Lady Vols - would have made Pat Summitt proud.  They were in a league of their own.  And, for sure, my mom in in a league of her own.