‘A League of Their Own’ series brings new storylines to a baseball classic

By Carolina Cerda Maira, MWN

Thirty years ago, a movie about women who played baseball while U.S. professional players fought in World War II was released. Starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna, “A League of Their Own” became a classic.

And now, the series based on this story is available on Prime Video. The creator, screenwriter and star Abbi Jacobson (Carson Shaw), along with actress Chanté Adams (Max Chapman), talked to Metro about the production and the issues their characters face.

In the series, Jacobson plays Carson Shaw, a young woman married to a man who is on the front lines and bidding for a spot on the women’s baseball team.

“I think the biggest challenges I had were creative, but positive: the film is a favorite of many people and there is immense pressure because of that.”

Regarding the new version, she assured that together with co-creator Will Graham they never wanted to do a remake. In fact, they decided that if they were going to do the project, they would tell stories that hadn’t been shown before.

“That includes the story of the women who played baseball in the 1940s and that includes my character’s journey to the women’s American Professional Baseball League – which is featured in the film – and what happens when that window of opportunity opens to white women or those who appear to be white but closes to African-American women or women of color. And how a character like Max, who plays so well, ends up finding his team,” Jacobson said. 

Adams added on what her character faces: “Max is at war on three different fronts: she’s black, she’s a woman and she fights for sexual diversity. So, this presents a number of obstacles for her in different ways.”

These difficulties were a “plus” for the actress.

“That’s the beauty of this role for me as an actress: peeling back those layers and diving into each of them. Understanding how Max is going to keep moving through all of this. She gets told “no” a lot for being Black, for being a woman even though all she wants to do is play baseball, plus she’s hiding a big part of herself from everyone who loves her. I mean, she’s trying to balance a lot of things during the season.”

Jacobson concluded: “The background of the series is finding your team on or off the field: that includes the love of the game, learning who you are and issues like sexuality. Those are themes that are alluded to in the film but weren’t highlighted. We decided to show the whole other cast of characters and stories and the challenge became entertaining.”  

‘A League of Their Own‘ is now streaming on Amazon Prime.