Apr 112014
 

Capture

So this is one of the movie scenes that gets to me. It’s from the film A League of Their Own about a women’s professional baseball team in the 1940s. Tom Hanks is the alcoholic former big leaguer, Jimmy Dugan, called in to manage. Geena Davis is Dottie Hinson, the female lead, the team’s catcher. Jimmy (“There no crying in baseball“) Dugan at first ignores the team, then pushes too hard. Dottie decides to go home to Oregon. Then we have a scene culminating in Jimmy’s unforgettable speech. Jimmy is trying to get Dottie to stay. Dottie says, “It just got too hard.” Jimmy turns away, then swings back. “It’s supposed to be hard,” he says. “If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”

dg

  One Response to “A Sentimental Education: Words To Live By, or Not—”

  1. This is wonderful. I seem to remember a certain graduate advisor using that bit of advice on me at one point. 🙂

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