Still Having Ball in League of Own : Movie: Ex-players of the team that inspired the film speak in Anaheim.

Lavon (Pepper) Davis doesn’t have much patience with today’s baseball superstars, the guys who get big money but let small injuries sit them down.

In their honor, she has changed the words to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Working up a little cheerful indignation Tuesday night, the former star catcher of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League sang out a chorus:

Take me out of the ballgame,

I don’t think I can play.

I’ve got a headache and a hangnail, too

So take me out of the game.

It wasn’t anything like that, she said, back when women were women and nobody minded, especially if you could hit a screwball. Davis made about $70 a week, rode buses all over the place, played with broken bones and bruised hips. She had to perform like a man on the field and act like a lady off.

In short, it “was the best time of my life,” she told about 75 people at the Cinemapolis here Tuesday night. Davis had come to speak before a screening of “A League of Their Own”--the Madonna/Geena Davis/Tom Hanks movie that Davis’ league inspired--as part of a weekly series that matches movies with their stars and/or subjects.

Now in her late 60s and still sassy, Davis first gave a small history lesson on how the AAGPBL came to be. Chewing-gum magnate P.K. Wrigley, who owned the Chicago Cubs, formed the league in 1943 both as a diversion for war-exhausted Americans and as a way to keep himself and his fellow owners in business if their major league teams had to shut down because of the scarcity of male players.

Recruited from all over the country, the women did not do so well in the big cities where they first were marketed, but found a following in the Midwest. Eventually, 10 teams were formed, and they drew about a million fans during their 130-game schedule. The AAGPBL lasted until 1954 and was recognized with an exhibit in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1988.

The honor was fitting, Davis noted proudly, because the women were good. And because they had to overcome more than just the many demands of the game.

“There were a lot of people who had trouble with the image,” she explained. “You weren’t supposed to be at home plate, you were supposed to be home washing the plate.

“There were women who hated us because they didn’t think we should be doing a masculine thing. Then there were men who just thought it was funny, women playing baseball. But we won them over with our play . . . they could see that we could play.”

Davis, who starred on five pennant-winning teams, was known for her defensive skill (she said Geena Davis’ character in the movie is “loosely based” on her) and her hitting. One year, she batted 396 times and struck out only six times.

Apparently, Davis and her colleagues let their sporting extend beyond the field. “There were 10 teams so I had 10 boyfriends,” she recalled. “I had one in every port. We definitely had some good times.”

“And don’t forget that some of those boyfriends got passed around, too!” added Alice (Lefty) Hohlmayer, a top pitcher (lifetime E.R.A.: 2.02) on Davis’ team. Hohlmayer joined Davis in Anaheim along with Gina Casey and Helen Hannah Campbell, also AAGPBL veterans.

Davis, who was a consultant to “A League of Their Own,” thinks the filmmakers did “a fine job. It captured our spirit. We were funny at times and dramatic at other times and always good ballplayers. The movie showed that.”

She added that it’s not all gospel. For instance, she said that when Hanks, as a manager, yells at a player for crying, it’s pure Hollywood. But the part where Geena Davis’ character catches a foul while dropping into a split--that actually happened.

Pepper Davis pointed to her forehead. “The split? Yeah, all the way to here.”

She said she had had misgivings about some of the casting but they proved to be unfounded. She could not see Hanks as a boozy manager, but was won over by his performance and personality. “He is such a sweet guy, very funny on the set. I couldn’t see this handsome, amusing guy in the role, but I think he did a great job.”

And what about Madonna? Davis liked her, too. “A really nice gal. Also an outrageous lady. Outrageous all the way to the bank.”

* “A League of Their Own” is playing countywide. See the Orange County Movie Guide, F3.