Other team members include "All the Way" Mae (Madonna), the team's token "loose girl"; Mae's boisterous best friend Doris (Rosie O'Donnell); a plain-Jane powerhouse hitter named Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh); and assorted other young women with a variety of personal problems that will be resolved by the final reel.

Once the games begin in earnest, the film settles into a predictable story line — and in the end, the sisters will resolve their differences, the other players will overcome their problems, and the manager will shed his male chauvinism and start to care about his team.

The entire cast is good, with many of the actresses who play teammates giving a genuine boost to underwritten characters. Special kudos to Davis and Hanks. And someone really missed a bet by not bringing Lovitz back into the picture now and again.

In the end, "A League of Their Own" settles for light humor, soft characterizations and sentimental resolutions. It's bound to find an audience that will be happy with what it has to offer, but it's a shame the real potential here wasn't better tapped by screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel ("City Slickers," "Parenthood," "Splash") and director Penny Marshall ("Awakenings," "Big").

On the whole, it is a pleasant diversion that should have been more.

"A League of Their Own" is rated PG for a fairly steady stream of vulgar dialogue, along with some profanity and violence.