There's no tying in baseball

August 27, 2021 10:08 AM

Did Dottie Drop the Ball On Purpose?: Solving the Only Cinematic Mystery That Matters

The time has come...to debate what is probably the most important question of an old millennial’s life: Did Dottie Hinson drop the ball on purpose at the end of A League of Their Own in order to let her sister shine?

Lori Petty, who played Kit, the younger sister to Geena Davis’s Dottie, says:

I mean this from my heart — obviously, I smashed her in half and she dropped the ball. Dottie’s such a competitor she would not drop the ball on purpose. Can you imagine giving up the World Series? I don’t even understand that.

In a 25th anniversary oral history, Geena Davis said:

I'll say two things about that. No. 1: I know the answer. Because it was me, of course, I know the answer. And No. 2: No, I'm not going to answer that question.

I never have, and I never will.

Some discussion of this in a previous post about the movie.

Before there was a movie, there was a 1987 documentary with the same title featuring the women of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.

D'Arcy Carden and Abbi Jacobson are working on A League of Their Own series at Amazon. Rosie O’Donnell's playing a bartender at a local gay bar, and Nick Offerman is playing coach Casey “Dove” Porter.

posted by kirkaracha (24 comments total)

My wife and I recently re-watched this film, and it's pretty delightful, throughout.

I think that it's ok for a film to be ambiguous about plot points! I also think that the film sets it up that Dottie Hinson wanted to get Kit out (she tells the pitcher to feed her high heat!), so it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that she'd just let her sister get the run. That read on the film is kind of a bummer, honestly.

I was just stunned that so many people feel that way, since I've always thought it was a nice end to Kit's arc, that she actually was about to flourish and do well with the new team out from under the shadow of her sister.
posted by RubixsQube at 10:24 AM on August 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

I think the question of whether Dottie dropped the ball is a psychology test all on its own.

Were you the younger sibling who trailed along in your older sibling's shadow? Then of course Kit bowled Dottie over, finally, for once proving that she was just as good as her big sister.

Were you the older sibling who sacrificed everything for your youngers? Then of course Dottie dropped the ball on purpose, in order to give Kit her chance to shine.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:26 AM on August 27, 2021 [28 favorites]

I'm the oldest of three kids, and I consulted with my two siblings (bother and sister) about this pressing issue. We've all played at least high school sports and my sister got a basketball scholarship.

We all agreed that she wouldn't drop the ball on purpose. Our consensus is that we'd owe it to ourselves and our teammates to play as hard as we could, and would not let the younger sister score on purpose.

I'm very interested to know how takes on this break down along older/younger sibling lines, especially between sisters.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:28 AM on August 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

I thought it was deliberately left ambiguous because it's art, which is a tool we use to tell each other about reality, and in reality things happen that change our lives and we sometimes we can never understand them or know what happened or why.
posted by bleep at 10:32 AM on August 27, 2021 [20 favorites]

I love Geena Davis’s refusal to answer the question (a friend who has interviewed her says she really delights in the refusal)
posted by dismas at 10:33 AM on August 27, 2021 [23 favorites]

I always thought she dropped it deliberately.

But I’m an oldest sister and “Satisfied” is my favorite song from “Hamilton” etc etc
posted by thivaia at 10:46 AM on August 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

D'Arcy Carden and Abbi Jacobson are working on A League of Their Own series at Amazon. Rosie O’Donnell's playing a bartender at a local gay bar, and Nick Offerman is playing coach Casey “Dove” Porter.

Of all the parts of this post that I love (and it's every part) this is the part I love the most.
posted by gladly at 10:47 AM on August 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

I think it's great and charming that Davis both insists that she knows the answer and refuses to share. But that doesn't make it anymore likely that her character would throw the game (and the series!) for her sister. There's just nothing in the film to suggest that. It's a great movie, and is amenable to many interpretations, but some are more based on the text than others.

Anyway, it's not just Dottie and Kit out there, there's a whole team she played with who struggled to be the best they could, and to take that away from all of them to give it her sister would just be shitty to everyone involved, and doesn't fit the character they developed through the whole movie.
posted by skewed at 10:50 AM on August 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

I believe Dottie did NOT drop the ball on purpose; she just didn't feel as bad about it as she might have if it hadn't been Kit.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 10:51 AM on August 27, 2021 [19 favorites]

I prefer to think Dottie didn't drop the ball on purpose, because my god, if Kit ever found out that would be it, she'd feel like she was under Dottie's shadow forever and the one thing she felt like she'd achieved through her own grit would be taken away from her. Dottie has to be a smart enough person to understand that. I think dropping the ball on purpose would actually make Dottie a slightly worse character in the end, maybe even somehow a meaner character—okay, you get to be a person who can do things on their own, but only because I let you.

Plus all the stuff about how she has an obligation to herself and to the team, even if personally she would've been quite happy to go home and be a good housewife. She doesn't seem like the type to half-ass something just because some part of her doesn't want to do it, or because she felt someone needed her to be less than her best. She doesn't seem like the type to half-ass ANYTHING.

But maybe that's part of the psychology test, yeah?
posted by chrominance at 10:53 AM on August 27, 2021 [12 favorites]

Kit 's character arcs don't end with growth if the theories pan out. Kit would still need big sister's help to get ahead, just like an hour ago in the movie when Dottie refused to play if Kit wasn't there.

This is akin to the "Cobb's still in a dream" theory from Inception.

I refuse to entertain Dottie dropping the ball simply because it makes for a boring, pointless story.
posted by bfranklin at 11:09 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Younger sisters know that older sisters will say that Dottie dropped the ball on purpose.

But they also know that no older sister, in Dottie's situation, would actually do so.
posted by fleacircus at 11:13 AM on August 27, 2021 [18 favorites]

Solving the Only Cinematic Mystery That Matters

* Gasp * Really? Someone figured out what Bill Murray whispered into Scarlett Johannsen's ear in -

.....oh, you mean the other mystery.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:33 AM on August 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

"Well it's been a thin slice of heaven"

Is one of my favorite parting lines
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:40 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Before there was a movie, there was a 1987 documentary with the same title featuring the women of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.

There's also the really lovely A Secret Love, a documentary on Netflix about two members of the league who were together for 60+ years.
posted by lunasol at 12:01 PM on August 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

Really? Someone figured out what Bill Murray whispered into Scarlett Johannsen's ear in -

He told her the contents of Marcellus Wallace's briefcase.
posted by radwolf76 at 12:19 PM on August 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

I am an older sister but in the same position I would not have dropped the ball.

1) I have an obligation to my teammates to play to the best of my ability regardless of the opponent

2) I respect my sister enough to play my best against her and to let her win would indicate otherwise

3) If I have to listen to a lifetime of my sister crowing about the fact that she beat me at something, she's going to have to earn it. I'm not going to deliberately subject myself to that out of a misguided sense of older sibling sacrifice.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 12:28 PM on August 27, 2021 [22 favorites]

Dottie was a team player. The drop was not deliberate.

Also. A League of Their Own is better than Bull Durham. There. I said it.
posted by Beholder at 12:43 PM on August 27, 2021 [14 favorites]

Dottie didn't drop the ball on purpose, but Kit always wondered if she did.
posted by the primroses were over at 1:03 PM on August 27, 2021 [12 favorites]

I do like Bull Durham, but I like A League of Their Own more. I'm excited about the streaming show!

Having said that, I'll also say that the 'convention' scene on the pitcher's mound from Bull Durham lives in my head rent-free...it's funny, and I also like to see a bunch of guys dealing with personal stresses and problems in ways that involve talking and deciding rather than denial/getting mad.
posted by theatro at 1:04 PM on August 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

Imagine if true, imagine poor Dottie sitting in that bumpy Studabaker on the road to Oregon with her hot veteran husband and thinking, "Gee I do have some unfinished business, I really need to go back and throw the game so my kid sister can complete her character arc!"

Maaaaaybe there is an argument that for the good of the league, she threw the game to unambiguously crown Kit as the new star.
posted by muddgirl at 1:11 PM on August 27, 2021

I always though that she dropped the ball on purpose but I also think that Jonas dies at the end of The Giver. Like, not even a question. Totally the kid dies. I did not even realize until talking to other people that this was supposed to be an "ambiguous" ending to The Giver. So maybe I'm not very good at ambiguous endings.

Anyway, Dottie dropped the ball on purpose but could not ever say that she did so because that would ruin it.
posted by which_chick at 1:20 PM on August 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

I think it’s clear from the context that Dottie is literally a viking when she plays baseball.
posted by dephlogisticated at 1:57 PM on August 27, 2021 [11 favorites]

I had assumed she was partially concussed from the collision and dropped the ball in the confusion.
posted by jmauro at 3:21 PM on August 28, 2021 [1 favorite]