Movies - TV
A League Of Their Own's Most Memorable Moment Came From A Throwaway Line
By LEIGH GIANGRECO
Tom Hanks’ line of “There’s no crying in baseball!” in “A League Of Their Own” is on AFI's top 100 movie quotes, flashed on Jumbotrons across the U.S., and yelled by dads at Little League games. However, at the time, no one involved with the film had any idea that the line would become so iconic.
When Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel wrote the scene, it was simply to show the difference between the former Cubs player’s time in the major leagues and the more feminine aspects of women’s baseball. Ganz described it as “a first-draft scene. First-draft dialogue,” and Hanks recalled how the line didn’t get any memorable reactions during the script reads.
However, it was Hanks’ performance that secured its place in cinematic history. In an interview, Hanks reminisced, “Bitty Schram dissolving into tears and humiliation gave me the go-ahead to be DEFCON 5 with outrage — and just keep going.”
As his co-star, Geena Davis, explained “I didn't know that was going to be a classic. That line is a signature, right up there with 'Hasta la vista, baby.'” That famous line is now enshrined in Hollywood history by the Writers Guild, which requested the original handwritten page from Ganz and Mandel for a display in their headquarters alongside other famous scripts.