Once a Rockford Peach, always a Rockford Peach. Twenty-one years after A League of Their Own was released in theaters, leading lady Geena Davis is still rocking her 1940s baseball dress from the movie. On Friday, Aug. 2, the 57-year-old actress channeled her character, Dottie Hinson, in a replica of her Rockford Peaches uniform, complete with a red cap and knee socks.
In lieu of a catcher’s mitt or baseball bat, though, Davis — 36 when A League of Their Own came out — brandished an archer’s bow and had a pack of arrows slung across her back. She appeared to be filming some kind of a commercial.
Set during World War II, A League of Their Own featured the Thelma & Louise star as a player in the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Tom Hanks played her surly manager, Jimmy Dugan, and Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, and Ann Cusack (John and Joan Cusack‘s sister) played her teammates. (The movie also starred Jon Lovitz, Bill Pullman, and Tea Leoni.)
Speaking about the filmmaking experience in an interview with Parade last year, the comedy-drama’s 20th anniversary, Davis said she was surprised at how beloved the movie was — and still is. “I certainly hoped people would like it and that it would be successful, but the success we had at the box office was a really big deal back then,” she said. “Even today, lots of 15-year-old girls will tell me, ‘I play sports because of that movie.’ It’s fantastic.”
In fact, A League of Their Own was Davis’ initiation into sports, too. “I was supposed to play the best baseball player anyone has ever seen, but I didn’t know how to play baseball at all — or any other sport, really!” she told Parade. “I had to learn how to look like I was that player.”
“They had tremendous major league coaches who were really great, and I remember one of the coaches even saying, ‘Hey! You’re picking this up pretty fast. Looks like you had some untapped athletic ability!'” she explained. “It was a challenge, but I got to where I was pretty good. I sort of pretended I was Jackie Cooper on the ball field.”
