The AAGPBL was formed during World War II to boost flagging game attendance with so many male players (and audience members) taken out of the game and into the armed forces. Its players were scouted from amateur women's leagues and clubs throughout the United States, and in some cases even beyond. For some women, being able to play professional baseball gives them independence and economic freedom that they were never able to achieve before. Others want to play solely for their love of the game. Regardless of their reasons, they face constant opposition both on and off the field.
In addition to exploring the sexism of the era which the women had to deal with, the series also explores in-depth the racial, sexuality, and gender issues which pervaded society at the time (and still today).
Created by by Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson (who also stars as main character Carson Shaw), the eight-episode season covered initial tryouts up through the 1943 league championship.
Contains examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Greta nicknames Jo "Joey", who in turn calls her "Bird".
- All for Nothing: Max takes a job at the factory specifically so that she will eligible to join the company baseball team. After spending days sucking up to the star pitcher in the hopes that he will ask the coach to add her to the team, including quitting working at her mother's salon specifically so she can stay on the same shift as him, he abruptly quits so he can take another job at a different factory and the coach makes Gary the new pitcher without even giving Max a chance to try out.
- Always Identical Twins: Jess, Lupe and Carson run into unnamed identical twin sisters in the gay bar. The pair are played by real identical twin sisters Kora and Ava Duvall.
- Autopilot Artistry: When Carson challenges "Dove" Porter to coach the team for real, she starts by pitching a baseball at him from behind. She expected him to instinctively catch it, but because he had no idea she was there or was throwing something at him, it sails right past his head and smashes into his car.
- The Beard:
- Greta explains to Carson that whenever she starts a new relationship with a woman, she makes a point of being seen on the arm of a man that same night to throw off any suspicion. She later goes on a date arranged through the league with a male fan.
- When Shirley begins to suspect that Jo is gay, Carson makes up a story on the spot that Jo was actually having a secret affair with "Dove" Porter, their coach.
- The wife of the owner of the hidden gay bar in Rockford frequently goes out in public with a male soldier, and when Carson first met her she assumed that he was her husband. It turns out that they're both gay.
- Blatant Lies: The series opens with Carson rushing to catch a train out of town and bumping into somebody she knows at the train station. Despite carrying luggage and literally running after the train, she tells them that she will see them later today.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Jo. Her powerful batting skill and exuberant personality always help keep the team spirits up.
- Broken Pedestal: Carson starts out idolizing "Dove" Porter due to his time pitching in the major leagues, and his original jovial attitude makes her think that he will be a great coach and mentor for the Peaches. Unfortunately she quickly learns that the joviality is an act, since he doesn't respect any of the female players or the league itself and is only coasting until the gimmick gets him enough attention to trade to a 'real' team.
- Butch Lesbian: Jess, Lupe, and Jo favor more masculine clothing and Jess constantly wears pants in public even though she always gets fined for it. Lupe and Jo also wear their hair short and Jess ties her longer hair into a tight braid in the back. Vi, the owner of the gay bar all of them visit, is also short-haired and always wears a suit.
- Cast Full of Gay: The vast majority of the cast is some variety of queer.
- Casting Gag: Abbi Jacobson and D'Arcy Carden appeared together on Broad City. Their characters Abbi and Gemma worked together at the Soulstice gym, and there were frequent jokes about how much more attractive/in better shape Gemma was than Abbi.
- Celeb Crush: Carson is shocked when Jess and Lupe point out to her that they're famous, and are an object of desire for all the gay women at the bar. Jess and Lupe call over a pair of twins who gush over meeting her, and when she coincidentally bumps into them at the restaurant their father runs, they send over complimentary drinks and can't help but stare at her and Greta together.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Carson Shaw is a deliberate inversion of Dottie Hinson's character from the original film. Dottie grew up and worked on her family's farm, while Carson repeatedly states that she isn't from a farm. Dottie was Happily Married and very nearly left the Peaches to reunite with her husband, while Carson joined the Peaches to get away from her husband. Dottie was The Ace who was regarded as both the best player in the entire league and also the public face of women's baseball, while Carson's arc is learning to believe in herself and growing into a position of leadership.
- Crass Canuck / Moose and Maple Syrup: Jess hails from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. The gruff, no-nonsense, smokin', pissin', and drinkin' shortstop is also a competent outdoorsman (implied to have survived several boat sinkings) and often shares characteristically rural aphorisms.
- Dare to Be Badass: Carson realizes that Coach "Dove" Porter has no inclination to put effort into coaching them since he has no faith in the team and is just coasting in the hopes that having his name attached to a gimmick will get him enough attention to leverage a position with a "real" baseball team. She ambushes him in a parking lot and says that if he wants them to be better then coach them, and if he can't do that then at least stay out of their way so they can work on improving themselves. She is completely surprised when he instead abandons the Peaches midway through a following game and takes a job with an MLB team.
- Defeating the Cheating Opponent: In their first night game, Carson & Lupe confront the umpire when they realize that the left field lights are being turned off when it's their turn to bat, done at the behest of the opposing team's coach who has been exploiting his influence over the home field. Eventually, they convince the umpire to have the lights left on, allowing the Peaches to rally and win the game.
- Distinction Without a Difference: One of the complaints that "Dove" Porter has about people only ever remembering that he hit a bird with a pitch in his short time playing in the major leagues is that the bird was actually a pigeon, not a dove. Carson has to explain to him that doves are pigeons. note
- Down to the Last Play: The 1943 league championship is all tied up in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. Jo hits a home run for the Blue Sox, but her leg injury causes her to collapse at first base and league rules specify that she has to walk the bases or the run doesn't count. Even knowing that it will cause them to lose the game, the Peaches pick her up and carry her around the bases to score the run and win the championship for the Blue Sox.
- Everyone Can See It: Everybody can tell that Gary has a crush on Max, with Clance hoping that they will settle down together so they can double-date.
- Forced Out of the Closet: After the police raid on the nightclub, Beverly pays off the police to NOT publicly out Jo because she knows that Jo would be fired from the league and face immediate personal danger. The rest of the Peaches still figure out the truth, including Shirley, who has been speculating about Jo's sexuality for a while.
- Fragile Speedster: Esti González, the smallest and youngest member of the team, is the "fastest stealer in the League". While not necessarily physically fragile, her age & inexperience makes her vulnerable to emotional woes.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: When Jo injures herself during her home run in the league championship, if the Peaches do nothing her run doesn't count and they have a chance to win the game in extra innings. Instead they pick her up and carry her around the bases to score her run and win the game for the Blue Sox.
- Gay Bar Reveal: When Carson follows Lupe to see if she is trying to get traded to another team, she is so angry while confronting her that she doesn't notice the bar they wind up at is full of same-sex couples and people dressed in extravagant clothing. Jess has to explicitly tell Carson to look around for her to realize that she stumbled into something other than a baseball meeting.
- Gay Euphemism: The real-life term "Friend of Dorothy" is used to identify whether to let somebody into the secret gay bar in Rockford.
- Gender-Blender Name: Max's mother Toni Chapman half-jokes that the only reason a bank gave her a loan for her business is because they mistook her name for a man's name. This gives Max the idea to try and pass as a man.
- Glory Days: "Dove" Porter spent three years playing in the major leagues before his arm gave out, and has countless stories about the superstar players he encountered in that time.
- Gone Horribly Right: Max makes it her mission to suck up to the star pitcher on the factory team so that he will put in a good word for her with the coach. She impresses him so much — and does so much of his work for him — that when he transfers shifts he pulls strings for her to come with him to the 'better' day shift. Unfortunately this means that she cannot continue to hide the job from her parents by working nights and has to publicly quit working at her mother's salon.
- Good Luck Charm: The team starts a tradition of kissing Jo's arm before the game for good luck. This leads to the pun that they need Jo's arm (good luck) and they need Jo's arm (her batting skill).
- Hereditary Homosexuality:
- Max, a closeted lesbian, learns her maternal aunt Bertie is also an "invert" after overhearing her parents talking about why her mom's estranged from her. It turns out Bertie's a trans man though.
- Jess and Lupe also hit on lesbian identical twin sisters in the secret gay bar who are fans of the Peaches team.
- Heteronormative Crusader: The league expends much time, effort, and money on making sure that the players are all still 'proper' women. This includes mandating the clothing they wear in their own free time, makeup during the games, and even arranging dates for them with appropriate (male) fans. It's never explicitly stated by the league, but the women who are gay know that they will be fired immediately if they are ever outed to the administration.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Max and Clance are so close that Clance tells Max she is the most important person to her in the world, even though her husband Guy is right next to them. Clance repeatedly states that she would chose Max over Guy, and Max states that as much as she loves baseball it's Clance who is her 'team'.
- Hiding Your Heritage: The Mexican-American Lupe García is labelled the 'Spanish Striker' by the management and press, since saying she is of Spanish descent instead of Mexican is easier for the public to accept. Ironically, the actually-foreign Esti González doesn't need to hide her heritage, since at the time American society regarded Cubans as being of Spanish (European) descent and therefore classified as 'white' when it came to issues of segregation and law.
- Homage: Carson's introduction to the secret gay bar recreates Dorothy's introduction to Oz in The Wizard of Oz. The sequence starts out almost sepia-toned in the gray tax office, then the shot follows her as she walks through the door with blue lighting into the full-color bar. The camerwork showing the door opening and Carson walking forward even mimics the camerwork from the film.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: "Dove" Porter is resentful that his short career in the major leagues ended before he could accomplish anything memorable other than hit a bird with a pitch. Now he spends his time telling stories about the people he briefly encountered who have gone on to be superstars.
- Implausible Deniability: Lupe claims to Carson that she doesn't know the Comets' pitcher immediately after calling her 'baby' and trying to keep her from storming out of their date.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Clance tells Max she is the most important person to her in the world, even though her husband Guy is right next to them.
- Incompatible Orientation:
- Carson is married to Charlie, a man who she seems to deeply care for, but with Greta's prompting she admits to herself in the very first episode that she doesn't — can't — love him.
- Gary has a very obvious crush on Max, and she tries to reciprocate, but she simply doesn't have any attraction to him at all.
- After Shirley discovers that several of her teammates are gay, she panics due to her fears of it spreading like a disease. She eventually forces herself to kiss Carson and is relieved when she realizes that she feels no attraction to her and she is still straight.
- Innocently Insensitive: The rest of the team is unconsciously racist towards Lupe, because they never considered how working around her close relationship with Dove effectively shunned their one Mexican player and excluded her from their team bonding. Even Jess, Lupe's best friend on the team, doesn't understand until Lupe points it out.
- Intergenerational Rivalry: Clance has an ongoing feud with the children next door over their interpretation and critique of comicbooks.
- It's All About Me: Max has an unfortunate habit of taking Clance's emotional support and forgetting to return it when necessary. After losing her spot on the company baseball team she goes to Clance's house, only for Clance to point out that this is her and Guy's last night together before he is drafted into the army. Clance had hoped that Max was coming to offer her own support, and has to shut the door in her face when she realized that Max had come for Clance to comfort her.
- I Will Wait for You: Clance is waiting for Guy, and there is never even a hint of her looking around for somebody else to keep her company while he is away.
- Jackie Robinson Story: While the entire league has to struggle with the institutional sexism of America in 1943, Max also has to struggle against the racism of the era as well. She is not even allowed to try out for the league, and spends the whole season trying to force her way onto a local team that blocks her for her sex, her race, or both.
- Joe Sent Me: You can gain access to the hidden gay bar in Rockford by saying that you are a friend of Dorothy.
- Keep the Home Fires Burning:
- The league forms in the first place because the men are off at war, and women are stepping in to fill their shoes. The league owners primarily want to boost ticket sales for financial gain, but there's a little bit of moral support as well to keep American society supported by the pillar that is Baseball.
- Deconstructed with Carson and her relationship with Charlie. They're married, and she does care for him deeply, but she doesn't love him and is actually personally happier with him away at war. When she learns that he is being discharged and sent home she panics and flees.
- Clance's husband Guy is drafted shortly after their wedding, and much of her story is her struggling to deal with the fear of what may happen to him while he is away.
- The Lancer: Lupe becomes co-captain of the team with Carson. This started out rough but they eventually learned to work together, filling the gaps in each others' leadership methods.
- Language Barrier: Esti González only speaks Spanish, while the rest of the Peaches speak English. Lupe speaks both English and Spanish and becomes Esti's de facto interpreter, but she resents being forced into the role. Jess is the one who really tries to look out for Esti, and throughout the season stumbles in trying to learn Spanish (and teaching Esti English) to make communication easier.
- Late Coming Out: Carson is already a grown, married woman before she accepts that she is attracted to women and not to her husband.
- Laughing Mad: With the combined personal stresses of a husband away at war and the loss of a lifelong dream, Clance and Max spend one shift at the factory with brazenly demented smiles and constant giggling as they try to pretend that they aren't emotionally devastated.
- Lesbian Jock: Many of the Peaches, an all-female baseball team, it turns out are, along with Max and Esther. It's also estimated by one that around 35% of the league are lesbians overall. This was Truth in Television, according to actual players from the league.
- Like Goes with Like: Non-romantic version, Lupe is forced to become Esti's de facto interpreter since she is the only player who speaks both English and Spanish. She resents the way this forces her to care for Esti simply because they are the only two Hispanic players, and becomes harsh and dismissive as a result.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Carson and Greta qualify, as does a player for the Blue Sox who is discussed when Lupe, Jess, and Carson are at the gay bar.Carson: She's so girly!
Jess: So are you. So is Greta. I mean, not everybody's butch. - Loophole Abuse:
- In the final play of the championship game, Jo is injured at first base and the rules specify that she must physically make the trip around the bases for her home run to count, and her teammates cannot help her round the bases to score her run. There is no rule that her opponents cannot help her, so the Peaches pick her up and walk the bases to score the winning run for the Blue Sox.
- Beverly collects fines each time a player breaks one of the league's behavior rules, such as wearing pants in public. When the season is over, she returns all of the fined money to the players, since the rules only say she has to collect it, not what she has to do with it.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple:
- Butch Lesbian Vi, the gay bar's owner, is married to Edie, a Lipstick Lesbian (unofficially, this being the 1940s).
- After adopting her butch style, Max begins a relationship with the more feminine lesbian S (Esther).
- Lupe, a Butch Lesbian, dates the pitcher of the Comets, a Lipstick Lesbian.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Played for Laughs with Lupe and the Comets' pitcher. When Carson sees them talking and finds them together in the bar, she thinks Lupe is trying to leave the Peaches and get transferred to the Comets. It takes a whole conversation, and Jess's help, for her to figure out that they were on a date. The pitcher for her part thinks that Carson's anger is because she and Lupe were dating, and is horrified at the thought that she might be 'the other woman' and apologizes profusely before leaving.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Carson and Greta have the sheets around them after they have sex.
- Multinational Team: The Rockford Peaches are predominantly American, but the team also includes Canadian, Cuban, and unspecified other nationalities as well. The league scouted as far as they could to get qualified players when they were starting up.
- Never Tell Me the Odds!: After getting a few wins in, Lupe, Carson & Jess go over their odds and declare that they can win the whole thing, despite still having a lot of games left to play. Inverted later in the series as they get closer to the championships; Shirley approaches Carson with the information that they only have a 1-in-18 chance and that they have to win almost every game, which does not help Carson who's already dealing with a stack of issues as coach.
- Not His Sled: The show follows the same general concept of the movie, but is classified as a 'reimagining' instead of a 'remake' so goes in several different directions.
- Nick Offerman is put into the role of the White-Dwarf Starlet Coach Dove Porter. In the movie, the coach grew with the team and became an integral part, but here he leaves midway after failing to step up after Carson challenges him to.
- Odd Friendship:
- Max is a spirited athlete who lives & breathes baseball and Clance is a nerdy homemaker who makes comics. Even they wonder how they are best friends.
- Jo and Maybelle are polar opposites in many ways but get along nicely as roommates.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Clance refers to Max's nonbinary uncle Bert as a "freak", unaware that Max is struggling with her own gender identity.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: "Dove" Porter once hit a bird while he was pitching, and that is all that anybody remembers about his tenure in the major leagues. It even gave him his nickname. Now he resents that his tenure was so short that he never had time to accomplish anything else besides the bird.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Carson follows Lupe into a hidden bar and finds her talking with the pitcher from the Comets, she harangues her for going behind everybody's back and trying to get traded to another baseball team. Lupe, in turn, desperately tries to persuade Carson not to out her to the rest of the team after Carson figured out that Lupe was gay and tracked her to her date at a secret gay bar.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Jo is only called by her full name Josephine a couple times.
- Opposing Sports Team: The Blue Sox are ranked #1 in the league, and are the Peaches' rival for the league championship.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Carson overhears Lupe begging Beverly to 'swap her out', and believes she's trying to get traded to another team. Lupe was just asking to be moved rooms, since she didn't want to keep being forced to spend time with Esti.
- Parental Substitute: Lupe and Jess to Esti. When Esti gets homesick and attempts to run away, Lupe and Jess waste no time finding her. When they eventually do, Jess takes time to teach Esti how to drive, and Lupe shares a story about her own family troubles to connect with the kid.
- Pass Fail: Max decides to disguise herself as a man to get a job at the factory, and from there get onto the company baseball team. Unfortunately, the two racist women she met when she tried to apply as a woman are present and recognize her literally as soon as she walks onto the factory floor for her first shift. Luckily for her, the manager is so desperate for workers that he doesn't care once he confirms that she's able-bodied and willing to risk injury.
- Passionate Sports Girl: The series explores the different ways this can manifest for the different players.
- Carson wants to play for the independence it allows her from her husband.
- Greta and Jo see it as another adventure in their lives before they go to California and try to get into movies.
- Max is the one whose passion is for the game itself. She will gladly play for no money on a podunk company team that only plays other podunk company teams if it means she gets to play.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Greta and Jo have grown up together, traveled together, came to grips with their sexuality together, and are now playing baseball together. However as the season progresses they grow apart and eventually realize that they each need to live their own lives, and cannot continue to live as a duo.
- Playing Catch with the Old Man: Played to the letter with Max and her dad on Episode 4. Her dad has been supportive of her baseball dreams thus far, and when Max seeks advice for her upcoming tryout, he says he has nothing left to teach her, "except to celebrate".
- Police Brutality: The cops raid the secret gay bar in Rockford, roughing up anybody they catch. They arrest Jo, and when she returns to the house the next day she has a bloody wound on her head and walks with a limp. The leg injury is so bad that it pops up again during the last game of the season.
- Proverbial Wisdom: Coach "Dove" Porter fills almost all of his coaching with anecdotes of his time playing baseball, or down-home folksy wisdom. As time progresses, the Peaches come to realize that he isn't really saying anything.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: At the end of the season, Jo is transferred to the Blue Sox after she is arrested at a gay bar. This is viewed by the rest of the Peaches as a punishment, but is at least partly for her protection since if she stayed in Rockford she was in physical danger after being caught with a local girl.
- Red Baron:
- "Dove" Porter got his nickname from when he once hit a bird with a pitch. Ironically, he hates the nickname because it is the only thing he is remembered for.
- Pitcher Lupe García is nicknamed the 'Spanish Striker' to convince the public that she is of Spanish descent, and not Mexican.
- Remake Cameo: Rosie O'Donnell, who appeared in the original film, guest-stars in an episode as the owner of a hidden gay bar that the queer girls on the team discover.
- Runaway Fiancé: Carson and Charlie are already married, but Charlie is away serving in the war so they are not living together as husband and wife. When Carson learns that he is being discharged and sent home, she panics at the thought of actually being married together and flees to the league.
- Running Gag:
- The most frequent gag is people talking about Carson being from a farm since she is from Idaho, and how she presents an entire farm girl persona. She repeatedly insists every time that she isn't actually from a farm.
- Guy just cannot keep his mouth shut.
- Saying Too Much: Guy just cannot keep his mouth shut. He tells Max's mother that she went to the baseball tryouts in Chicago, and later spilled the beans that Gary had been offered the new position as pitcher on the company team. After he's drafted, Clance sarcastically remarks that he's probably going to give away their home coordinates to the Germans.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Beverly, the chaperone for the Peaches, has to enforce all of the morality rules required by the league to uphold their image as "proper" ladies. When Jo is arrested at the gay bar, Beverly pays out of her own pocket to have the police not publicly out her so that she won't be fired from the league. She also returns all of Jess's fines for wearing pants in public at the end of the season, reasoning that the rules say she has to collect the fines, but doesn't specify what she has to do with them.
- Second Place Is for Winners: The Peaches were once ranked dead last in the entire league, so managing to make it to the championships and play all the way to the final inning of the last game is a victory all by itself.
- Secret Relationship: All of the lesbian relationships, aside from two couples' lesbian friends, because with homophobia at the time the consequences would be them getting fired or worse.
- Max is secretly boinking her preacher's wife before breaking up with her.
- Carson and Greta also start up a relationship together they keep secret as well.
- Lupe is revealed to be secretly dating another woman.
- Additionally, Max's uncle Burt, a trans man, has to keep his assigned sex quiet. He and his wife live near the railroad tracks away from most people so they're private.
- Secret Room: The gay bar in Rockford is hidden behind an office with a man who offers tax advice, but who will show you in if you are a friend of Dorothy.
- Serious Business: Clance has an ongoing feud with the neighboring kids over their interpretation of comic books.
- Sequel Hook: The season ends with Carson and Greta exchanging a last passionate kiss and promising to see each other next season and Carson telling Greta she plans to leave Charlie, only for Carson to turn around and see that Charlie was watching the whole thing.
- Shout-Out:
- New Yorkers Jo and Greta make reference to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn several times.
- The Wizard of Oz receives extensive discussion and features prominently as characters attend several showings of the film and debate its meaning. The real-life term "Friend of Dorothy" even shows up to gain access to the hidden gay bar.
- Sizable Semitic Nose: When Vivienne Hughes is brought in to make the players look "palatable for an audience," one of the first things she and her team of stylists do is examine and criticize the facial features of all the women. When she gets to Shirley Cohen, who is Jewish and has a prominent hooked nose, Vivienne immediately remarks, "Too Semitic."
- Statuesque Stunner: Greta Gill is the tallest of all the Peaches, and is also the most glamorous and made-up as well.
- Stay in the Kitchen
- The league has to deal with the public perception that women either can't play baseball well enough to be worth watching, or if they can then they'll be unfeminine, unattractive, and immoral. The league enforces rules requiring makeup, skirts for play, and specific public behavior to make sure they always look properly feminine enough.
- Gary, a fellow pitcher who has a crush on Max, lets slip several times that even though he knows she's a better pitcher than him, he expects her to give up baseball and settle down (hopefully with him).
- Stealing the Credit: It is very lightly implied that "Dove" Porter took Carson's diagrams and records of play history and passed them off as his own to secure a MLB position.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Max disguises herself as a man to get a job at the factory in town since even though they're taking black men for the factory, black women aren't being considered for the office. She is exposed as soon as she walks onto the work floor because she's recognized by the racist women who turned her away to begin with, but the factory is so desperate for workers that they don't care and let her keep working without a disguise. They then begin openly hiring black women for the factory as well.
- Territorial Smurfette: Esther is the pitcher for the Red Wright All Stars, and she is rude when Max mentions that she is also a pitcher since she doesn't want Max taking her spot on the team. She changes her tune pretty quickly when she sees Max watching a game, and even fakes an injury so Max has a chance to play and be recruited as the team's second female pitcher. She later explicitly says she did this because she realized that if there wasn't enough room for both of them, the blame lay with the men who made things this way in the first place.
- Throwing the Fight: The Rockford Screws have an annual exhibition game against the Red Wright All Stars, and the Screws have a five-year winning streak in these games. When the All Stars start suddenly performing poorly, the audience echoes a rumor that they get a cut of the ticket sales if they throw the game. Red Wright himself later all but admits it to Max.
- Tomboyish Name: Butch Lesbian Jo goes by this instead of her full name Josephine.
- Transparent Closet: Many of the women on the team realize that Carson is a lesbian soon after meeting her, in at least one case even before she admits it to herself.
- Triple Shifter: Max gets a job working nights at the factory in the hopes of getting onto the company team, and to keep it a secret she continues working days at her mother's salon. She's exhausted, but before it drags on long enough for her to be discovered she is transferred to the day shift at the factory and has to come clean to her mother anyway.
- Turn Out Like His Father: Max's mother Toni is desperate to keep Max from ever meeting or knowing about "Aunt Bertie", Toni's sibling who is living life happily as Uncle Bert.
- Twin Threesome Fantasy: Jess and Lupe are eager to call over the pair of twins sitting at the bar in the secret gay bar, and are just as quick to push Carson away from the table (she is, after all, both married and taken) to leave them alone.
- Underdogs Never Lose: At one point the Peaches are ranked last in the league, and even after climbing out of that hole they're still mediocre-ranked for most of the season. After managing to beat the Blue Sox, the #1 team, they decided to drive for the league championship. Despite doubt from the management and needing to pull off an unbroken series of wins to even qualify, they win every subsequent game and do make it to the championship game after all. They lose in the final game of the series.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The specific characters and narrative are wholly original to the series. The series does incorporate real-life events that occurred during and around the AAGPBL formation, and applies them to the fictitious original characters.
- Wartime Wedding: They didn't mean it to be, but Clance and Guy got married shortly before the start of the series, only for Guy to be drafted almost immediately thereafter.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: In-Universe, Clance manages to glean an entire socio-economic morality tale from The Wizard of Oz that serves as a metaphor for the racism, imperialism, and economic history of the USA (albeit leaning heavily on the old chestnut that Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the East, which she didn't).
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Carson follows Lupe to one, unaware what it is initially. Lupe and Jess are already hanging out inside. She takes Greta another time, but they have to flee as it's raided by the police, with Jo being arrested.
- You Are in Command Now:
- When coach "Dove" Porter walks off in the middle of a game, Carson and Lupe are drafted as interim coaches. Carson is made the permanent coach when they learn Dove is not coming back.
- Max is abruptly promoted to shift lead at the factory when the previous lead quit to take a different job.
- You Go, Girl!: Since the AAGPBL is segregated, Max has to try and find a way to force her way onto a local company team which is already recruiting black factory workers. At one point she offers up two weeks' worth of wages to prove that she can out-pitch any of the current players. Unfortunately, she's so obsessed with proving herself that she can't focus or settle down, and she botches all of her pitches. She does eventually prove what she can do after her own character growth later in the series.
- You Know I'm Black, Right?: When Jess asks why Lupe is so angry at Carson and the rest of the Peaches, Lupe points out the way that everything has been slanted in Carson's favor — even subconsciously — and asks Jess if she can figure out why she might be angry at it. Hermano.
