A league of their own

Then why the frick did she tell the pitcher how to strike her out only to then drop the ball on purpose?

She don’t drop it on purpose. But Dottie as a true competitor can appreciate her sister finally wanting it more.

Avoid the clap.

I’ll go to my grave believing that not only did she NOT drop the ball on purpose, it was never even intended to be ambiguous, they just ended up accidentally shooting and editing it in such way that it created the question.

Dottie had been better than Kit their entire lives and they were both acutely aware of that fact. In that last moment Dottie might have wanted it, but Kit NEEDED IT in a way Dottie never had. Dottie might not have liked it, but she still felt proud of her sister at the end. Great film, great ending.

And “It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great" is an all-time sports movie line.

Ever since I first saw this movie, Ive wondered what it would be like to have Rogers Hornsby call me a talking pile of pig shite when my parents had driven down all of the way from Michigan to see me play the game. Would I cry?

MAybe but if she did she's the shittiest teammate of all time. This isn't rec league its professional baseball.

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it's pretty clear Dottie drops the ball on purpose.

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Dropping it on purpose undermines everything in the movie.

- Dottie being a good teammate. She would never have done that to her team just to make her sister happy. She was even pissed at her and told the pitcher what pitches she can't hit and can't lay off of.
- Kit's success. Dropping it on purpose completely deflates Kit finally besting her sister and "earning it" (along with Dottie's respect). If Dottie drops it on purpose then Kit resents her for the rest of her life, and Dottie isn't proud of Kit. And postgame you can see that she is proud of Kit and finally knows that she was bested by Kit legitimately and no longer has to carry her with her.

On top of that, when Kit rounds third, you can see Dottie is legit shocked and almost scared by it. She wasn't expecting her to keep running and to get a collision at home plate. It caught her off guard, you can see the fear in her eyes, and Kit finally won that battle.

I do agree they could've filmed it better to make it look more accidental. But if she drops it on purpose it basically ruins the growth of the characters in the movie. So it doesn't really make any sense. Who are we happy for at the end of the movie if Dottie took a dive and gifted it to Kit? The answer is nobody, because it would all be cheap and unearned. Dottie would be upset that she fricked her team over. Kit would be upset because even in their biggest moment, Dottie couldn't respect her enough to not give it to her. The team would be upset. Jimmy would be upset. The fans. Etc.

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“It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great"

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Great point as well. And even more evidence that it was not intentional.

all of that.
she did not drop the ball intentionally (in the narrative) and this argument is dumb

now obviously she (the actor) had to drop the ball and it’s pretty damn hard to film a sequence where it looks accidental when you are told to do it on purpose LOL

Lori Perry has gone on record that Dottie didn’t drop it on purpose which is funny either way.

She had already left her teammates because she had chosen family. She only came back because Dugan told her that she would regret it.

When Dottie was rounding third, she came to the realization that her choice of family over baseball was the right one. She also knew how much it meant to her sister. Dropping the ball was her parting gift to her sister.

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Dottie being a good teammate. She would never have done that to her team just to make her sister happy.

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She up and quit on the team right before the big game just so she could get a few days head start on cooking dinner for her husband and making babies. That doesn't sound like an ultra-competitive, team-first player.

Also, they show her watching her sister cry and come unglued in the dugout. We see the look of anguish on her face. That some pretty heavy foreshadowing of motive.

I think the only honest answer here is that they made the scene intentionally ambiguous and left it up to the viewers to decide. There are clues throughout that point to both outcomes and the way they filmed the close up of the ball hitting the ground is an obvious gesture towards that ambiguity.