A baseball player who helped inspire 'A League of Their Own' came out as a lesbian at 95 years old
- An original player in the AAGPBL — the inspiration for "A League of Their Own" — came out as gay.
- Maybelle Blair attended the new show's premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Festival in New York City.
An original player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — the inspiration for "A League of Their Own," the movie (and now show premiering on Amazon Prime Video) — provided one of the most heartwarming moments of the 2022 Tribeca Festival.
Maybelle Blair, a pitcher for the AAGPBL's Peoria Redwings, came out as a lesbian for "basically the first time" during a panel at the prestigious film festival. She is 95 years old.
Blair told the crowd at New York City's SVA Theatre that she'd known she liked women since high school. For many years, she "thought she was the only gay person in the world," according to Adweek's Mollie Cahillane.
Baseball — and later softball — helped Blair realize that she wasn't alone.
She was on stage to help promote the premiere of Amazon Prime's new "A League of Their Own" television series. During filming, Blair helped consult showrunners Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson — of "Broad City" fame — on the happenings within the league from a first-hand perspective.
On Monday, after watching the first episode of the show — which Graham and Jacobson hope centers around "queer representation, Black representation, and chosen family," per Cahillane — Blair felt inspired to share her own truth.
The nonagenarian received a standing ovation from the crowd in Chelsea. And Jacobson — who stars in the series, in addition to creating and producing the show — cried along with co-star D'Arcy Carden.
The "A League of Their Own" TV series will be available to the public on Amazon Prime beginning August 12. Check out the official trailer below: