On A League of Their Own, there is no one way to be gay. When something like half the cast is queer (even the ball boy!), there’s no obligation for any one character to get the last word on how to look, act, or feel about being gay. There are butches, femmes, a trans guy, and some folks actively exploring where they fall long the gender and queer spectrums.
There are Black LGBTQ people of just about every stripe, a Mexican player who the top brass label as Spanish, because it’ll “go over easier,” and the beauty boot camp scene serves as a reminder that being “too Semitic” was seen as an openly discussed PR issue at the time. The script doesn’t shy away from the contours of safety and visibility these differences create, like when Lupe, the Mexican butch ballplayer, points out to her white butch teammate and closest friend McCready, the way that she has been typecast as a fiery, angry Mexican and blamed for problems in the club house.
Jo and Greta’s (D’Arcy Carden, The Good Place) friendship anchors this first season. They’re the first players Carson, our audience surrogate, meets, and they’re our guides into the world of women’s baseball in the 1940s. While the exact words are never used, they are a clearly chosen family, moving from city to city to chase opportunities for baseball or other work, and to run from danger or heartbreak. They worry for each other even when they don’t worry about themselves. The moment when it feels like all hope is lost, when Jo is arrested, beaten, and traded to the Blue Sox, wouldn’t hit so hard without Jo and Greta’s friendship – and by extension, the way Jo became the team’s beating heart – at the center of the show. Similarly, the climactic scene of Greta and Carson helping Jo around the bases after she parks it for the win (but aggravates her ankle injury from the police raid) hits home so hard because of those same bonds.
The Peaches aren’t the only gays in Rockford – there’s a thriving scene that predates their arrival. Vi, in an excellent cameo from 1992-era Rockford Peach Rosie O’Donnell, owns an underground bar for “friends of Dorothy” of any gender. Meanwhile, Max’s Uncle Bert (Lea Robinson, Unmasked, Chosen Fam) is a successful businessman connected to Black LGBTQ folks both in Rockford and around the country, hosting gatherings in the relative privacy of his home as well as going out in public with his wife, with an apparent level of confidence that surprises his niece. Vi, Bert, and their wives have carved out lives for themselves, elder queers serving as examples for the younger folks in their lives and creating relative safe spaces for their communities. They are making their own happiness, no matter what the world thinks, and honoring their love in their own way, even if their marriages aren’t legal.
They are not naive, however, nor is everything as easy as it looks. Vi might tell Carson it’s important to have fun and enjoy life, but the safety protocols at her bar and the way she reacts to the police raid make it clear that she knew the risks, and she was willing to put her body on the line to give everyone else as much time as possible to escape. For his part, while Bert walks around town with an easy confidence, he pushes back when Max (Chanté Adams, The Photograph) says life would be easier if she were a man. And when Max is getting ready to go on the road with her new baseball team, he offers her some words of caution, about protecting herself and being careful who she trusts. Bert also shares some names to look up on the road, like a much-abbreviated personal queer Green Book.
In the final episode, the Peaches’ chaperone Beverly, AKA Sarge (Dale Dickey) shares a small but powerful moment with Jess McCready (Kelly McCormack, Killjoys, Letterkenny). All season long, Sarge, who was put in place to enforce the League’s most onerous rules, has collected fines from McCready for wearing pants. For her part, McCready has gladly paid rather than spend any more time in a skirt than strictly necessary in order to play ball. With their season over and the Peaches due to head home, Sarge returns to McCready the entire season’s worth of fines, telling her the rules said she had to collect them – but they didn’t say what she had to do with them once collected. McCready is taken aback, and Sarge goes one step further, saying “We have to take care of our own, don’t we?” with a wink, signaling that she doesn’t just mean fellow Peaches.
