"If It Wasn't Hard, Everyone Would Do It"

An interview with Erin Carlson, author of No Crying in Baseball

Reader alert: Erin Carlson’s new book No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of A League of Their Own is a joyous, rollicking, deeply reported, eye-opening look at the making of the beloved baseball movie.  Carlson, the author of previous books about Nora Ephron and Meryl Streep, is a scholar of Hollywood history, and this story of a sleeper classic delves into everything from Madonna’s disappointment at finding herself washed ashore in the Midwest (“When God decided where the beautiful men were going to live in the world,” Carlson quotes her saying, “he did not choose Chicago”) to the stories of the pioneering 1940s baseball players whose experiences inspired the movie.  I loved every page when I got a chance to read it a few months back, and was so excited to get a chance to speak to Erin about this wonderful book, and ask her all my questions about baseball movies, Penny Marshall, Madonna, and so much more.

What inspired you to want to write about A League of Their Own?

I was flipping through channels in about the spring of 2021.    And I saw that A League of Their Own was on TV.  I don’t think I had seen it in about 20 years.  And I laughed, I cried, and I was like, this is a really good movie.  There’s a reason that it’s constantly on television.  Right now, somewhere, it’s on TV.  Yes, it’s about an obscure baseball league from the 1940s that nobody knew about until this movie, but there’s a universality to it.  There’s a lot of comedy and a lot of heart.  It felt like one of those earnest early 90s movies that I love that continue to stand the test of time. We live in such an ironic age that these movies seem like they would never be made today, and yet we keep watching them! It checked off a lot of boxes for me.  It had an irreverent director grappling with newfound power, and didn’t know how to wield it.  And it had a cast of big, boisterous personalities: Madonna, Tom Hanks, Lori Petty before Point Break had come out. 

It was the rare film to showcase an all-female team sport, and not just any team sport, the sport of baseball, long a male-dominated sport.  Because it’s geared toward women, you would never think it would be the most successful baseball movie of all time! But it is.  It even did well overseas.  It made $130 million at the box office worldwide, and it made more money than Bull Durham and Field of Dreams and The Natural. 

I’m really fascinated in stories of ambition as well.  Penny Marshall was always complaining, “I hate directing.  Why am I doing this movie?  I would rather be sitting home watching television.” But she was secretly ambitious.  She kept wanting to make movies.  I was fascinated about the contradictions of this woman who was very much a homebody who liked to stay home and curl up in her bed and watch TV, but also loved making movies.  She complained a lot, but that was where she really came alive.  And for kind of a short span in the late 80s and early 90s she made fantastic films before losing her mojo a little bit. 

Why do you think Penny Marshall is often left out of the conversation about pioneering female filmmakers?

Because with a director like Nora Ephron, who was her contemporary, Nora’s films, like A League of Their Own, had a second life, especially on social media, and there’s a cult of personality built around Nora Ephron.  Penny doesn’t have that cult of personality around her. Even though she was a huge Hollywood player.  She was the first woman to hit $100 million at the box office, with Big.  But her life story was not as uplifting as Nora’s.

Her career faltered after A League of Their Own.  She had the opportunity to direct Forrest Gump.  Tom Hanks wanted her to direct that movie, and she turned it down.  Her friend was very sick, and she wanted to be there with him.  But also, she didn’t know if she could do the action scenes.  She was insecure about that.  So instead of directing that movie, she directed Renaissance Man with Danny DeVito, which didn’t do as well as she had hoped, and then she went on to direct The Preacher’s Wife, a modest hit with an amazing performance from Whitney Houston. 

After that, she aged out of opportunities.  People didn’t think of her for things, and didn’t send her scripts.  She was more visible on the court at Lakers games.  And she had this amazing collection of sports memorabilia that people like Bob Costas talk about in hushed tones. 

What was it like to have a mega-superstar like Madonna be part of this movie shoot?

It was really weird for people.  So here was this star at the height of her fame.  She had just come off Blonde Ambition, which was a blockbuster tour not unlike Taylor Swift’s Eras.  And she was a provocateur.  She was the most controversial woman in the world.  She was possibly one of the most famous women in the world, maybe second to Princess Diana.  So she was a pretty big deal. 

When auditions for this movie were announced, every actress in Hollywood wanted to be in it. It was such a rare occurrence. Madonna was interested in playing a more major role than the one she got.  She was interested in playing Kit Keller, which went to Lori Petty.  Penny was like “no no no, you can’t carry a movie right now.”  They made her character a streetwise, brassy version of Madonna. 

The movie was filmed in Chicago and Indiana over 4-5 months, and at first, her work ethic was unparalleled.  She’d wake up at 4 AM to go jogging, then go to baseball training, then go to dance training for their dance sequence, and people were in awe of her.  She was originally supposed to be at third base, but the coach for the film put her in center field.  Cause she couldn’t really hit, or catch, or throw.  But center field allowed her to glide along the grass. And she had the dancing skill.  She was more of a natural in the outfield. 

She would complain to Penny: “You know I’m a star, but you’re turning me into an extra.”  She didn’t like the hurry up and wait. Madonna did not love sitting in her trailer all day.  One day she wraps herself, and as an actor, you’re not supposed to wrap yourself, you have to be told to go home.  Penny became livid.  Penny was like, “I’m going to write her out of the movie.  I’m going to make her pregnant.”  So word got back to Madonna, and by the time Penny got home, she got a contrite voice mail from Madonna saying that she was sorry, she’ll never do it again.  But Madonna, she was a star, and she wanted to be treated like a star, and I have to say, I don’t blame her.  You don’t want to exploit somebody like that.  If you’re going to use a big star like Madonna to get butts in theater seats, I think there’s a certain level of expectation. 

Even though she might have been upset that she had limited screen time, I think it’s the best work of her career.  Even though she’s playing a version of herself.  You look at her, and you go, that’s Madonna! But it’s also Mae. 

Do you have a favorite supporting cast member from the movie?

Megan Cavanagh, who played Marla Hooch, is fantastically funny, and so nice.  And my interview with her was like four hours because she has this amazing memory. 

She was trying to make it as an actress, and she heard about these auditions for A League of Their Own, and went to Rod Dedeaux Field at USC and crashed the audition. And she found herself face to face with Rod Dedeaux, who was the coach at USC and was an adviser on the film. She put her game face on, and she got the role.  She could play, she was trainable.  When Megan got the role, she was just ecstatic.  She was telling me how she got the role, and I felt the vicarious thrill, because she’s a hometown girl, she’s from the Chicago area like me.  I felt like I got the role too.  30 years later, I was excited for her.  I liked those regular-gal stories.

In what ways does A League of Their Own deviate from the historical record?

It honors the original story of the league while deviating from the queer history.  I interviewed Rosie O’Donnell for the book, and she remarked how the queer history of the league was kept under the surface of the movie, or just erased completely, but when you met the original players from the league, she said a large number of them were gay, and had partners and maybe they didn’t put labels on their partnerships, but they were obviously lesbians, and that proof was left out of the film. 

For queer audiences and fans of the films, the movie is a queer film.  Megan Cavanagh said Penny played in a boys’ club.  I think for Penny, because she wasn’t gay, it just didn’t affect her on that level.  She didn’t really grasp the significance of telling stories like this.  It was a different era.  That’s not an excuse.  But I think if she were making this film today, she would absolutely adhere to the truth of it.

Last and most important question. In your opinion, does Dottie drop the ball on purpose and let her sister win the title? 

At first, I thought that she cheated to let her sister win, because her sister wanted it more.  And what an act of sisterly love to give Kit this gift of a World Series win!  I love the ambiguity of that.  But when I talked to athletes and ask them this question, they get really mad: “She did not drop the ball on purpose.  She dropped that ball fair and square!” Even though Kit wanted it more, Dottie is a winner.  She’s in it to win it.  And also, no one can play a perfect game of baseball.  Failure is built into the sport. Even your heroes screw up.