a league of their own

Josephine D'Angelo, an openly lesbian member of the All-American Girl's Professional Baseball League, died last month at 88.

This is just the best!

Rosie O'Donnell and Geena Davis get to meet members of their movie's inspirational women's baseball league.

Lavonne “Pepper” Paire-Davis, the inspiration for Geena Davis’ character Dottie Henson in A League of Their Own, died at the age of 88 of natural causes in Los Angeles on Saturday, reports the Houston Chronicle. Catcher and shortstop for the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was formed in 1943, Paire-Davis’ career was the impetus for the beloved 1992 Penny Marshall film A League of Their Own that starred Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks and Madonna.

Wouldn’t classic movies like A League of Their Own, Dangerous Liaisons and Thelma and Louise have been infinitely more satisfying if there were just one lesbian character among them? With our post from earlier this year, 10 TV Shows We Can’t Believe Don’t Have Gay Characters, as a springboard, we’ve reimagined 15 now classic movies using Gina Gershon’s super-smoldering Corky from Bound as the gold standard of cinematic lesbian characters.

Earlier this week the news that the WNBA team that fostered the likes of Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper, The Houston Comets, was disbanding and now a lottery is planned for Monday to disperse Comets’ players throughtout other WNBA teams.