'League Of Their Own' Inspiration Comes Out At 95, Played For IL Team

NEW YORK, NY — One of the baseball players who helped inspire “A League of Their Own” recently came out as a member of the LGBTQ community.

Maybelle Blair, 95, pitched for the 1948 Peoria Redwings in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and spoke last week at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival following a screening of the new Amazon series based on the story of the league and its players, according to HuffPost.

“I hid for 75, 85 years, and this is actually basically the first time I’ve ever come out,” Blair said in a video shared on the series’ Twitter account.

A Texas native, Blair spent one year with the Redwings before going on to play professional softball in Chicago, according to the league.

Started in 1943 as young men were drafted to fight in World War II and left behind a dearth of skilled baseball players, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League provided an opportunity for more than 600 women to play baseball professionally before disbanding in 1954. It also inspired the beloved 1992 Penny Marshall film “A League of Their Own,” starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna.

The Amazon series of the same name debuts Aug. 12 on Prime Video and stars co-creator Abbi Jacobson as well as D’Arcy Carden, Nick Offerman and Rosie O’Donnell, who had a major role in the 1992 movie.

“‘A League of Their Own’ evokes the joyful spirit of Penny Marshall's beloved classic, while widening the lens to tell the story of an entire generation of women who dreamed of playing professional baseball,” according to the show’s YouTube teaser description. “The show takes a deeper look at race and sexuality, following the journey of a whole new ensemble of characters as they carve their own paths towards the field, both in the League and outside of it.”

The actress Molly Ephraim will play a character named Maybelle in the series, according to IMDb.

“For the majority of her life, sports legend 95-year old @AAGPBL player, Maybelle Blair felt like she had to hide her authentic self,” a June 13 tweet from the show said. “Today she came out publicly for the first time. We couldn't be happier for her, and continue to push for love and acceptance on and off the field.”