A League of Their Own commentary, part 13: ‘Kit! Kit! Kit!’

The Peaches hold a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the 9th in Game 7 of the World Series. Kit is absolutely losing it in Racine’s dugout. She’s just distraught. Her catcher tells her to shake it off, because one run and they are “back in this ball game.” Again, does she think this is the middle innings? How is she not feeling any pressure at all? They’re three outs away from losing after the big letdown of being three outs away from winning. This amount of positivity and lack of awareness seems odd to me.

Dottie goes to her spot behind the plate but not before glancing at an upset Kit in the dugout. That had to get into Dottie’s head, right?

It’s a flyout for out No. 1. Then Dottie sacrifices her body once again to catch a foul ball in the Rockford dugout for the second out. There is a runner on base. And who’s up? If you guessed Kit having never seen the movie, you’d be right and are super smart. What’s strange about this though is that she’s still been in the dugout this whole time. She wasn’t on deck taking cuts. She’s holding up the game, stands up and grabs a random bat before heading to the plate. The sisters stare each other down at the plate before Dottie asks for timeout and goes out to the mound to talk to her pitcher.

‘Can’t lay off ‘em’
Dottie, who has claimed all along to not care about baseball that much, has ice in her veins as she tells Ellen Sue how to handle Kit as a hitter: “High fastballs. She can’t hit ‘em, can’t lay off ‘em.” Yes, we’re circling back to the beginning of the movie with the pitch Kit can’t hit. It’s interesting that that scouting report never came up with the Peaches before, but that’s right, this is really the first time we’re seeing Dottie and Kit as opponents anyway.

Let me say that I love Doris at third base during Kit’s at-bat here. She’s chattering it up to encourage Ellen Sue the entire time, to a point where’s it’s not so much annoying but comical. When Ellen Sue gets Kit to, predictably, swing and miss at a couple of high heaters, Doris about loses her shit in the best way. “One more!” she screams. “One more!” she turns and screams another direction. Doris also tells Ellen Sue a pitch “looked good” to her when it was so low it kicked up a dirt cloud. I mean, hilarious, right?

Down to the last strike, Kit glances down at Dottie, realizing she’s been set up to fail with that high-fastball pitch. Here’s the delivery and… Kit finally gets ahold of one up in the zone. Yes, she hits one of those elusive high fastballs. As Kit takes off for first base, Dottie stands up and throws her masks off with a shocked and nervous look on her face. She no doubt doesn’t know what to do as that ball carries deep into the outfield.

Play at the plate
The tying run comes across for a 2-2 game. It looks like Kit will check in at third with an RBI triple. Nope. She runs through the stop sign. We see her headed for home in slo-mo with the music charging as hard as she is at the moment. She is determined to beat her big sister here.

The ball is relayed in to Dottie at the plate, who braces for the collision with Kit, one we see in slow motion from different angles (If you look closely, you can also tell these are stunt doubles taking the tumble to the ground, not the actresses.). It all ends with a shot of Dottie’s arm hitting the ground and her fingers letting go of the baseball in their grips. An emphatic “safe!” call from the umpire confirms the inside-the-park, game-winning, series-clinching 3-2 Racine victory.

PA screams Dottie’s error into the microphone: “Hinson dropped the ball! Hinson dropped the ball!” Seriously, how did she drop the ball? Just, how? No, I don’t think she did it on purpose so her sister could win. All thoughts are out the window at that point, and besides, if she wanted her sister to win, there’s no way she goes to the mound for those high-fastball instructions. Dugan is clearly stunned Dottie dropped the ball, and the rest of the Peaches share the feeling.

Meanwhile, Racine players storm the field in celebration to the cheers of a jubilant crowd at the ballpark around them. The players lift Kit up onto their shoulders in triumph as the crowd later breaks into a “Kit! Kit! Kit!” cheer. She’s clearly the player of the game, even though this is decades before #TechnologyAndStuff (anyone know this reference?). There’s a great shot here, too, of Dottie and Dugan standing next to each other at the top of the dugout, looking on at Kit in the spotlight. Dottie appears to beam with sisterly pride in the moment.

The Racine players also make a fairly quick exit to the locker room, although there’s no evidence of a champagne-filled celebration. Then again, I suppose they weren’t allowed thanks to that lovely “no booze” rule. Different era.

It’s a sad state of affairs in the Peaches locker room as the players finish getting dressed and comment about their season ending. Alice isn’t looking forward to months in Saskatchewan, which really sucks unless “you like ice fishing.” I feel ya, Alice. Doris, leaving us once again with a fat-girl zinger, exits the room saying she’s so depressed she could eat a cow. Mae is the one to comfort Dottie here, telling her it’s alright. It’s a nice moment.

Sisterly bond is intact
Out in the hallway, Kit is signing autographs for a couple of young girls. And boy, Kit looks all cleaned up. I mean, she’s in her uniform and obviously hadn’t been in the locker room to change yet. So then why does her hair look like she just finished blow drying it and there’s really not any dirt on her? You can’t even tell she bulldozed her sister at the plate minutes earlier.

Kit and Dottie get another sisterly moment here, except this one is much more emotionally touching than their last verbal spat. Kit tries to half-heartedly apologize for the collision, to which Dottie ignores in a competitive manner. She acknowledges that Kit wanted it more than her, which is pretty true considering Dottie spent the entire movie downplaying her abilities. Kit plans to stick around the Midwest, and it seems she’s finally found a place for herself. Meaning, not in her sister’s shadow. 

Meanwhile, Dottie announces her plans to leave the league and raise a family with Bob back home.

The tone of the conversation here is pretty full-circle, as movies should be. Kit couldn’t get rid of Dottie this whole time, and now she’s begging her older sister to stay and play baseball. She starts to cry and even recognizes the irony herself: “Just when I want you to stay, you’re leaving.” The moment ends with a hug, which makes me smile a little as we see Kit’s death grip clutching Dottie’s back during the embrace.

Look how far Jimmy has come
Outside the ballpark, Jimmy finally meets Bob, and it’s kind of an awkward moment. Bob tells Jimmy, a former major leaguer, that he’s a big fan of his. Makes sense. Then Jimmy, realizing who this guy is (Dottie’s husband) responds with “Then I’m a big fan of yours.” I mean, what? What does that even mean, Jimmy? No wonder there was some awkward laughter between the three of them after that comment.

And here’s Dugan’s full-circle moment. Remember that drunk who slept through the entire first game for the Peaches? Well now he turned down a managing job for a triple-A team in order to keep managing Rockford.

The team buses are about to depart from the stadium. We also see Doris’ dad, who we meet briefly earlier as he buys a ticket from a scalper before Game 7. For 10 bucks. You’d think Doris could’ve gotten her pops a ticket, but he wanted to surprise her and then take her out to a steak dinner.

As Kit and Dottie board their respective buses, Dottie once again tells Kit to “lay off the high ones.” And Kit, who can mean it with a smile this time, replies “I like the high ones.” Then it’s their traditional “mule!” “nag!” exchange before Dottie watches the Belles bus start down the road and the picture fades away back to elderly Dottie in the present day.

A League of Their Own commentary, part 1: 'Mule!' 'Nag!'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 2: 'So we can make a buck...'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 3: 'Go where things happen'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 4: 'OK, some of them are goin' home'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 5: 'Still a fall-down drunk?'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 6: 'What a hitter'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 7: 'It had to be you'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 8: 'There's no crying in baseball!'

A League of Their Own commentary, part 9: 'You play like you love it' 
A League of Their Own commentary, part 10: 'If you're here, then I'm not here'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 11: 'It's supposed to be hard'
A League of Their Own commentary, part 12: 'I'm no quitter'