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No Madonna. No Geena Davis. But Still in a League of Their Own. - The New York Times

posted onSeptember 5, 2017
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Article snippet: SOUTH ELGIN, Ill. — Strike one. “You swing like a girl!” the pitcher barked, heckling yet another player at the plate. Sonja Bushnick of the Rockford Peaches lifted her wooden bat again. She passed on one ball and fouled off another. On the next pitch she hit a short pop-up that the pitcher caught with ease. He laughed at her. The pitcher — wearing suspenders, a necktie and a newsboy cap — was Jody McQuarters, the husband of the Peaches right fielder and a designated ham. At the sound of gunfire from a nearby military re-enactment, he pretended he had been shot in the backside and limped around the infield. Bushnick walked back to the bench with her head held high. There were no hurt feelings. She and her teammates, like the Peaches of the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” know that there is no crying in baseball. The latest incarnation of the team plays softball instead of baseball, as did the original Peaches for most of their existence in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and ’50s. The current roster consists primarily of two types of players: longtime athletes in their 30s, 40s and 50s who still crave time on the diamond and history buffs devoted to reproducing moments from another era. Many games, like the one here in South Elgin in June, coincide with World War II re-enactments and rely on players recruited from the crowd, including men who cross over from the military scenes. Jody McQuarters filled in as a Peaches opponent ... Link to the full article to read more

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