My wife and I are super tired today because instead of sleeping when the baby slept last night, we rewatched A League Of Their Own last night. I love this movie, but I’ve always hated the ending. Now, my sleep-deprived brain wants to analyze why the ending to A League Of Their Own is just the worst.

To refresh, (because if you haven’t already seen the movie, I wouldn’t read this blog) Dottie (Geena Davis) is on an all-women’s baseball team in the 40’s and the team has made it to the world series. As it happens, she doesn’t get a long well with her sister, Kit, (Lori Petty) who was traded from Dottie’s team to the team they are playing against in the World Series. Dottie quits the team before the first game of the World Series (because…reasons) and after 6 games, the series is tied 3 games a piece. Dottie comes back for game 7, hits a 2 run double off Kit, and has her team one out away from winning the series. Then Kit comes up to bat in the bottom of the 9th. Dottie is catching. Kit hits an in the park homer by knocking into Dottie at home plate where she drops the ball and Kit’s team wins. ANd that’s where we’re achieved suck.

Let’s start with the character of Kit. She’s annoying. She’s annoying through almost the whole movie. No disrespect to the actress playing her. That’s how she’s written…and they nailed it. She complains about everything Dottie does and doesn’t do. So when she switches teams mid movie and is now on the team playing AGAINST the Rockford Peaches, the team we’ve been watching and rooting for the whole movie, we’re not rooting for her team. We’re certainly not rooting for her. So when she’s called safe at home, why does a fanfare of triumphant, happy music play? (Side note: this is proof that Hans Zimmer DOES know what triumphant, inspiring music is supposed to sound like).

Plus, earlier in the movie, we saw Dottie get slammed into at home plate by someone MUCH bigger than Kit and she held onto the ball just fine. So are we supposed to believe she dropped it on purpose? That’s even worse. She had quit the team! Don’t come back just to throw the game so that you and your sister can have a make-up moment.

And about that “make-up” moment, after the game the two sisters talk and it seems like they are finally in a better place in their relationship. Then they hug like they are never going to see each other again. Then the very end is a reunion 50 years later and Dottie and Kit run into each other and hug like they haven’t seen each other since that game. SO what was all that making up for? Just to ignore each other for the next half century? How fulfilling.

Ok…I’m done. I just needed to grouse about the ending because it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth since a saw it way back in high school (yeah, I”m THAT old). Up until the ending I LOVE this movie. Tom Hanks is hilarious. Madonna is charming and I have never not loved Geena Davis in anything I’ve seen her in. So I’m not gonna cry too much over this ending. Especially since there’s no crying in baseball.