Director Penny Marshall knocked it out of the park with this terrifically warm, heartfelt and effortlessly entertaining baseball picture, scripted by the veteran screenwriting duo Lowell Ganz and Marc “Babaloo” Mandel, in the spirit of old-fashioned films such as The Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper, or Knute Rockne, All American with Ronald “The Gipper” Reagan.
It was inspired by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, founded in the second world war because the men were all away fighting. It is outstandingly performed and Madonna, in a small role, is perfectly directed and cast in a way she was never to be again in the movies. David Strathairn plays the general manager, Mr Lowenstein, and the director Garry Marshall, brother of Penny, has a cameo as the league’s owner, Walter Harvey.
