SOFTBALL / PAIGE A. LEECH : ‘League of Own’ Includes a Casey at Bat

Not knowing what she looks like, former Newbury Park High softball player Gina Casey is tough to spot in the feature film “A League of Their Own,” which opened Wednesday in theaters citywide.

Casey’s only speaking scene in the movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and ‘50s ended up on the cutting-room floor. Casey, 25, was originally cast as a double (or stand-in) for actress Debra Winger. But Winger bowed out of the movie before shooting began, leaving Casey without a part of her own.

“The scuttlebutt was that (Winger) wasn’t interested in working with Madonna,” Casey said.

Instead, Casey was used as an extra--one of 20 female ballplayers--which actually amounted to more screen time than she had anticipated.

“One day I changed my uniform nine times,” Casey said, “doing just about anything and everything (Director) Penny Marshall asked me to do.

“I’d wear my hair one way in one scene, then change my hair and uniform for another,” she said.

Although Casey played in youth leagues and for Amateur Softball Assn. teams throughout her youth, she played only one year of softball at Newbury Park, choosing instead to run hurdles for the track team. An outfielder and pitcher her senior year, Casey was a 1984 All-Marmonte League selection.

She has no doubt that her athletic abilities came from her mother, also named Gina, who had a hand in getting her daughter a tryout for the movie, which was shot last summer in Chicago and Indiana.

The elder Casey, a native of Providence, R.I., and one of 14 siblings, grew up playing ball.

“It’s ironic because she played softball and baseball with these ladies, and now I’m in the movie,” the younger Casey said. “That’s what made it so great.”

Although Casey’s mother never played in the AAGPBL, she played with some of the women who made up the league. She remembers those days with fondness.

“They called me Chirpie because I never shut up,” the elder Casey said. “They never called me by my real name. Some of the girls don’t even know my name to this day.”

Chirpie was 13 years old when chewing-gum magnate P.K. Wrigley, who owned the the Chicago Cubs, started the AAGPBL in 1943. By the time she was 18 and old enough to play, she opted instead to get married and start a family. Daughter Gina is one of six children.

The younger Casey, who moved from Newbury Park to Utica, Mich., in 1990, is no stranger to the silver screen.

She started out as a theater arts major at Pepperdine before switching to telecommunications. She has worked as a model and as an extra in the feature film “Listen to Me,” which was filmed on Pepperdine’s campus.

Working in “League” has rekindled Casey’s interest in acting.

But regardless of whether Casey gets another acting job, she won’t soon forget the 14-hour days of summer playing baseball with Geena Davis and Madonna under the hot Chicago sun or balmy Indiana skies.

“When you’re out there at 8 o’clock in the morning and you’re there all day with no shade, you’re not thinking, ‘Oh my God, that’s Geena Davis,’ ” Casey said. “After a while, she was just like everyone else--hot and sweaty.”

Top this: If high school pitchers Nancy Evans of Hoover and Laura Richardson of Camarillo sat down to compare accomplishments, they might be surprised at how much they have in common.

And this summer is the perfect time for the conversation because both are playing for Gordon’s Panthers, an 18-and-under ASA fast-pitch team based in Cypress.

Both right-handers will begin their senior year in the fall. After three years of high school, each has compiled a long list of awards.

Evans was named the Pacific League’s most valuable player in 1990 and ‘91, and Southern Section 4-A Division co-player of the year this past season. Richardson, the Marmonte League MVP in 1991, received the 5-A Division’s top honor the same year.

Add Panthers: Evans and Richardson have little to complain about in the offensive-support department. Gordon’s Panthers are averaging eight runs a game this season, due in great part to four other top players from the area: Jenny Dalton (Glendale), Jamie Dean (Hart), Nicole Ochoa and Christy Collier (Thousand Oaks).

Last weekend the Panthers beat the Majestics of Washington, 4-1, in the championship game of the Hall of Fame tournament in Oklahoma City.

Of the eight home runs hit in the 16-team, double-elimination tournament, the Panthers accounted for seven. Dalton, who will play for Arizona next season, hit four and Ochoa hit three.

“This team hits the ball hard,” Coach Larry Mays said. “It’s the first year our hitting has surpassed our pitching.”

That’s a big compliment considering the pitching talent of Evans and Richardson. But Mays, who has coached the Panthers since 1981, has had some of the best pitchers in the nation, including Lisa Fernandez and DeDe Weiman, both of UCLA.

End of reign: Before this year’s selection of Melissa Elgin of San Pedro as the City Section 4-A Division most valuable player, El Camino Real players had won or shared the honor in eight of the past nine years.

Former El Camino Real players Laurie Romero (1983 and ‘84), Beth Silverman (’86 and ‘88) and Chrissy Peck (’89 and ‘90) are the only two-time winners. Erin McGuire (1991) was the last El Camino Real player to win.

Fast facts: There are more than 50,000 Junior Olympic teams in the United States and about 16 million women playing the game overall, according to ASA spokesman Bill Plummer.

Softball becomes an Olympic medal sport in 1996.