re: A League of Their Own- Why did Dottie drop the ball on purpose?

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It's explained in the first scene in her advice to her grandkids. It's about what you value.

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This.

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Why would she be coaching the pitcher on how to pitch around Kit if she were tanking the game?

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the guilt from that is why she dropped it is how i already felt in the situation. isn't there a scene between the "pitch" and the "drop" where she sees dot being emotional? and doesn't that happen pretty close to before the"drop" scene? she was done with baseball. this meant more for her sister. she realized that and the only way her sister could win was for her to let her win. she sacrificed for her sister.

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she realized that and the only way her sister could win was for her to let her win.

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So, she made a great play on the throw and blocked the plate?

I think missing the throw would have been much less violent and more certain to ensure victory - just MHO.

One of three reasons:

1. Because of her secret enmity for the game of baseball. Trying to undermine the integrity of the game.

2. Because she thought that throwing the game would initiate the death spiral of women's baseball and she knew that men play baseball (and do everything else) better than women.

3. She bet heavily on the 15:1 underdog Racine Belles...cashed in and spent it all on liquor and weed.

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I think missing the throw would have been much less violent and more certain to ensure victory - just MHO.

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but this is a story, and that wouldn't have been dramatic

in the way the story is built, i just don't see how people couldn't understand what they were trying to portray

it wasn't until this board that i knew people disagreed

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Meh. Heroes don't lose, intentionally or otherwise.

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she didn't lose, though. the game was irrelevant to her b/c her choice was to be with her family at that point.

raising her sister up to become somebody was a win

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Why should she try to make her sister feel like she's better than she actually is? Why make that sacrifice?

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Because the movie has nothing to do with baseball, winning or even being the best at your sport. It has to do with FAMILY. From the first scene to the last, the film is focused on family. The point of the film is that the challenge for Dottie is NOT BASEBALL. The challenge is family, her relationship with her sister. Baseball is a backdrop to a more important story. That's why all of the people talking about "why did she drop it this way," or "why does she make a great play, and then decide to throw the game," and anything else around baseball and winning, and Dottie being her best and trying her hardest are trying to make a baseball movie out of a family movie. It doesn't work. The first scene in the film tells you that.

In the purest sense of the word, A League of Their Own is not a sports movie. It isn't about a team scrapping out wins and going for the big one. It isn't about Kit, it isn't about Jimmie. It's about family. Baseball is a catalyst.

Baseball comes easy to Dottie, family does not. That's why the end of the film is about Dottie making a choice for Family, on all accounts, and that includes giving up on the "big game."

She drops the ball because baseball isn't important to her anymore, family is.

(no message)

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She drops the ball because baseball isn't important to her anymore, family is.

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I'm not denying she dropped the ball. I'm not denying she dropped the ball because baseball wasn't as important to her. I'm denying she dropped it "on purpose".

That's a subtle difference, but an important one.

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And she couldn't have done that by just going to Oregon with her husband?

Meh.

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why i said "how they built the story"

her decision making wasn't the most efficient from a rational perspective, but this movie was about telling a story about emotional development. emotional thinking is irrational so those efficiency-based "gotchas" aren't persuasive. same as why they showed her violate the very tenets of her relationship as sister (knowing that super personal info that was established via her status as sister and not via her status as baseball player).

if you don't have dottie drop it on purpose, you basically also have to transform both sisters into a-hole crazy people