For the 1992 film
- Actor-Inspired Element:
- Doris was originally going to be another sexpot like Mae. When Rosie O'Donnell was cast, the character was re-worked to fit her personality.
- Geena Davis studied baseball games to add natural mannerisms in her performance, in particular, Dottie's habit of tugging at the front and back of her jersey when stepping into the batter's box.
- Actor-Shared Background: Alice and her portrayer are Canadian.
- Billing Displacement: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna are listed as the three main actors in promotional material, and home video, despite the fact that the characters Dottie and Kit are clearly the main stars, and Lori Petty has a much larger role than Madonna (although Madonna also contributed the movie's theme, "This Used to Be My Playground").
- California Doubling: The majority of the movie takes place in Oregon and Northern Illinois. However it was filmed almost entirely in southern Indiana, which looks nothing like Oregon, and is much hillier than Northern Illinois.
- The Harvey Field scenes were actually filmed at Wrigley Field, the direct inspiration for the former.
- Cast the Expert: Shirley Burkovich, who played the older Alice in the modern day scenes, was herself a player in the AAGPBL from 1949 to 1951.
- The Cast Showoff: Madonna gets to show off her forties dancing skills.
- Completely Different Title: In Japan, the film was released as プリティ・リーグ (Pretty Leagues).
- Creator Backlash: Madonna isn't really fond of "Playground", the song she wrote for the film. She called it "assignment writing" and she only wrote it because Penny Marshall requested it. Despite hitting Number #1, she's never performed it live.
- Creator's Favorite Episode: This is Tom Hanks' favourite film of his own.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- Lori Petty is a brunette and had to dye her hair red to look more believable as Geena Davis' sister.
- All the actresses took actual baseball training for six days a week, for several months. Even Geena Davis, among the last to be cast, mastered baseball skills within a few weeks.
- Tom Hanks put on thirty pounds to make Jimmy seem more like a Formerly Fit baseball player. He later went on record as saying that he largely gained the weight by frequenting a local Dairy Queen.
- Enforced Method Acting:
- Penny Marshall had the actresses play some unscripted innings to pad out the baseball scenes. Given all the training they'd been through, they were more than capable.
- No one, not even Tom Hanks, knew when he was going to be done peeing in that particular scene. Penny Marshall was in a stall off-camera with a hose and a bucket, and was responsible for the unanticipated length and stops-and-starts.
- Executive Meddling: The producers wanted Jimmy and Dottie to hook up in the end. They also pushed for Dottie to save Jimmy from his drinking. The director responded with a single scene on the bus where Jimmy ends the conversation saying it was "time for a drink." Dottie takes his flask and hands him a soda.
- Font Anachronism: The movie is set in 1943. The "Catch A Foul-Get A Kiss" banner is printed in the font "Banco", which was created in 1951.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Lori Petty was actually a faster runner than Geena Davis, so she had to slow down to let Dottie beat Kit.
- On-Set Injury: Many of the injuries and bruises in the film were real injuries that the actresses received during filming. The "strawberry" bruise that Renée Coleman received on her thigh while sliding into a base remained for over a year.
- Playing Against Type: Tom Hanks to some extent. Jimmy Dugan eventually proves to have a heart of gold, but he's arguably the sleaziest character Hanks had ever played at the time (in only three other movies has he played a character that could truly be considered villainous).(Jimmy has just signed a baseball for a little boy)
Little Boy: [reading] "Avoid the clap, Jimmy Dugan." Cool!
Jimmy Dugan: That's good advice! - Real-Life Relative: Penny's brother Garry Marshall as Walter Harvey, and daughter Tracy Reiner as Betty "Spaghetti" Horn.
- Recycled: The Series: Had a six episode run in 1993 as a half hour Sitcom. Garry Marshall, Jon Lovitz, Megan Cavanagh (Marla Hooch) and Tracy Reiner (Betty Horn) reprised their roles from the movie. Penny Marshall directed the pilot, and Tom Hanks directed an episode. A TV drama adaptation produced by Amazon aired its first season in 2022.
- Same Voice Their Entire Life: The older characters at the Baseball Hall of Fame have the voices of the actresses who played the characters in the 1940s. This is because they used the younger actresses to dub the lines.
- Star-Making Role: It would have been one for Lori Petty, except for her Career Killer role in her first starring role, Tank Girl.
- Throw It In!:
- During his scene on the farm, Jon Lovitz kept getting interrupted by the cows' mooing, prompting him to ad-lib, "Will you shut up?!"
- Kit cracking up during the beauty school sequence and Dottie reprimanding her was actually Lori Petty genuinely losing it and Geena Davis chastising her. Penny Marshall found the moment endearing and akin to their relationship, so she left it in.
- It was Petty's idea to have the scene where the black woman throws the ball to Dottie, as she felt there needed to be an acknowledgment of the fact blacks weren't allowed to play in the AAGBPL, and Penny Marshall agreed to add it in.
- Troubled Production: Debra Winger claimed that she left production because the casting of Madonna turned it into an "Elvis film" and would later make disparaging remarks about the final product. However, Frank Price, the former head of Columbia Pictures, countered her claims by stating that it was actually his decision to release Winger after she threatened to make filming difficult for Penny Marshall. Price, who had worked with Winger on several other films, claimed that Winger had a history of becoming difficult when a female star of equal or higher fame is on the same set as her which is what lead to her hostile behavior towards Marshall after Madonna was cast.
- Uncredited Role: David Lander (who'd previously worked alongside Penny Marshall as Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley) as the radio announcer.
- Underage Casting: The adult Stillwell was played by Mark Holton, who was 33 years old at the time of filming. Young Stillwell is introduced shortly after the first season of the AAGPBL begins in 1943. The scene in which Holton appears takes place in 1988, meaning Stillwell would've been in his late 40s by then.
- What Could Have Been:
- In the original cut, there was a subplot where Marla Hooch got married right after the Western Union scene. She tells the girls she's pregnant, but asks them not to tell the coaches who would kick her off her team, and the girls make a promise not to slide into second when she's playing. Then in a game, Dottie's so distracted she doesn't realize Marla's playing second, and slides hard enough into her stomach to cause her to go to the hospital. The scene where Dottie is weeping was originally supposed to be her guilt over what happened with Marla, rather than a direct segue from Betty's tragedy.
- And she's distracted because of another dropped subplot—growing romantic tension with Jimmy. They've shared a kiss
—this and the fight with Kit are what spurs her decision to quit the team—and have been arguing about it, which is why Dottie is oblivious to the warnings about Marla. Her tears are guilt over injuring Marla and her slight infidelity. - Debra Winger was originally set to play Dottie, but dropped out once she found out Madonna was chosen as one of her co-stars. Demi Moore was then cast in the role and participated in pre-production training, but had to drop out due to pregnancy; the filmmakers in a 30th anniversary special on MLB Network noted Moore was the best ballplayer out of anyone in the cast. Laura Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ally Sheedy and Sean Young were also considered.
- James Belushi was considered for the role of Jimmy Dugan.
- Moira Kelly and Molly Ringwald were considered for the role of Kit. (Kelly had to drop out when she injured her ankle filming The Cutting Edge.)
- Marisa Tomei, Farrah Fawcett, and KD Lang were considered for roles as well.
- Christopher Walken was Penny Marshall's first choice for Walter Harvey, but he proved to be too expensive, so she ended up casting her brother Garry. James Coburn, Paul Newman and Max von Sydow were also considered.
- Danny DeVito was considered for Ernie Capadino.
- Originally, Penny Marshall was going to produce rather than direct, as the studio wanted it made while she was filming Awakenings, so David Anspaugh (Hoosiers). However, the other producers thought Anspaugh was making it into too much of a straight drama instead of the mixture of comedy and drama they wanted, so he was fired and Marshall became the director after she finished Awakenings.
- Word of Gay: In an interview for the 2022 television adaptation, Rosie O'Donnell reveals that she believes that Doris was queer-coded.
- Written-In Infirmity: A consequence of Method Acting: none of the actresses wanted a stunt double, so they did many of the stunts themselves. Their injuries were written into the film. So when you see Rosie O'Donnell wearing a knee-brace, or Renee Coleman sporting a bloody bruise the size of a frying pan on her thigh, that's because they really did hurt themselves. Coleman later recounted that her bruise didn't fully go away for over a year. However, many of the baseballs used—such as the scene where Dottie catches a fast-pitch from Doris bare-handed—were tennis balls made to look like baseballs to avoid hurting the actresses unnecessarily.
