"We are the members of the All-American League..."

Admit it - we all have our specific movies that make us cry. For some people, it's the obvious ones, like Terms of Endearment, Beaches, or The Way We Were. But aside from those, there are the less common ones that make me emotional - the comedies that bring tears to my eyes, or the sentimental, overwrought dramas that make me bawl, even though nobody else finds them engaging.

One of those movies for me is A League of Their Own. Yes, that one. The baseball movie with Madonna. I don't know how I got attached to this movie in the first place, considering the fact that I hate baseball, but nonetheless, this movie has been making me cry since 1992, when I saw it in theaters.



From the first piano notes of Carole King's "Now and Forever", which plays while an older version of Geena Davis's character gets ready to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, to the teamwork montages in which Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna throw baseballs at each other, to the scene where Betty Spaghetti's husband dies and she has to be escorted away by Tom Hanks, as well the scene where Dottie's husband come back - all of it gets me emotional.

Despite the fact that no one dies, has a fight with their mother, or falls in love with their best friend, A League of Their Own is the ultimate chick flick. There's a sibling rivalry, a love story or two, a dancing scene, a sing along on a bus and in a locker room, and in the end, it's all about the bonds of sisterhood. It even stars Tom Hanks, and was directed by a woman. And if that's not enough, it's also got a little something for us gay girls, in the form of a bunch of girls playing baseball in skirts.

Not only is this movie ABOUT sentimentality and reminiscing, but the film, as well as the soundtrack, also holds some personal nostalgia for me. "Now and Forever" was the prom song at my high school, and it was chosen in part by my best friend, who used to sing this song with me as we trudged through the halls. "This Used to Be My Playground" was released as a single on cassette (I know!) the sumer I went to travel camp, and I used to play it on the bus during the last week of camp so we could all lament our return to junior high. "There's no crying in baseball" was a popular catch-phrase among my college roommates. And yes, I do know all of the words to the made-up Girls' Professional Baseball song.

In case that last paragraph didn't tip you off, one of my big weaknesses, both in real life and on film, is learning to let go of the past, and being nostalgic. Needless to say, by the time the ending credits roll and "This Used to Be My Playground" starts up, I'm a pathetic mess of a puddle on the floor. I still remember being the only one left in the theater long after the credits ended, trying to pull myself together and recover from the sadness of all that, uh, baseball.