If you saw the hit movie “A League of Their Own” starring Tom Hanks and Geena Davis, you well remember the Rockford (Ill.) Peaches, the team immortalized in the film about women playing professional baseball.

From 1943 through 1954, the Peaches were one of the main teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was started by Chicago Cubs owner and chewing gum magnate Philip Wrigley to keep baseball in the public eye when many pro players were being drafted into the armed services during World War II.

The 1992 movie was inspired by Dorothy “Dottie” Kamenshek, who played for the Peaches and was widely considered by many as the greatest female baseball ever. Davis played the catcher in the movie inspired by Dottie.

If anything, the movie was immortalized by the line of Coach Jimmy Dugan, played by Hanks, who said: “There’s no crying in baseball!”

Although the characters in the film were fictitious, they were based on real players like Wilma Ann Williams-Leach, an infielder from Missouri who played softball in high school and, as a senior, was recommended by a teacher to try out for the Peaches.

In April of 1953, Wilma tried out and made the team, returning to her high school to graduate before playing with the Peaches that summer. While in Rockford, the teenager and the other players stayed with families in the area located by the team.

The Peaches would travel by bus across the Midwest to play local teams in cities in Michigan and Indiana and despite her young age and playing with women much older, Wilma hit .260, much higher than the leave batting average of .230.

In a 1993 magazine article, Williams-Leach said the movie was very accurate and “it brought back many happy memories.”

The league disbanded in 1954 as interest decreased and the young athlete from Missouri then went on to attend college at Arkansas State where she was a cheerleader and captain of the Squaws, a girls intramural softball team.

In time, Wilma became a school teacher and eventually a surgery nurse. She died in 1993, shortly after the article on her baseball career was published.

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Fast forward to today, to The Woodlands, Texas, where two granddaughters of Wilma are lighting up the fields—in this case, it’s in softball, not baseball.

Aubrey Leach is a 2015 second baseman and outfielder who was an All-American last spring after hitting .589 with 49 RBI and 51 steals. She was rated as the No. 22 player in the Full Count Softball 2015 Hot 100 and signed with the Univ. of Tennessee last month.

Younger sister Kelcy, a 2017 catcher/third baseman is one of the top players in her class as well and hit .341 with a team-leading 10 home runs for The Woodlands. She has made unofficial visits to Baylor, LSU and South Alabama and is also hearing from Missouri, Kansas, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Pacific.

Together, the Leach siblings helped lead The Woodlands to the Texas 5A State Championship game and a 39-4 record, finishing No. 9 in the Full Count Softball FAB 50 rankings.

Somewhere, Wilma Ann Williams-Leach is smiling at the success of her granddaughters; it’s not hard to see where the Leach ladies picked up their softball genes.

“I never got a chance to meet my grandmother,” Kelcy says about her famous relative. “She passed away before I was born and from the stories that I was told by my grandfather, father, aunts and uncles and the articles that were written, she was a very special and talented women who was able to accomplish a lot athletically at a young age during a time when women’s sports was just starting in America.”

What Kelcy and Aubrey do know was passed down from family included stories of how great of an athlete Wilma was.

“My Grandmother was a very good softball player and volleyball player in high school,” Kelcy continues. “She was a catcher in high school, my position, and the softball team won district all four years that she played. As a volleyball player she was an outside hitter and her team was undefeated all four years of high school.”

Unfortunately, the great athletic talent displayed by the one-time Rockford Peach didn’t have a chance to develop in an era when women’s sports opportunities were limited.

“When my Grandmother finished playing professional baseball she enrolled in college, but Arkansas State did not offer women’s sports at that time so she joined the cheerleading squad and finished with an Education degree.”

Contrast that to the high schoolers grandfather, Lyn Leach, who played softball and was able to enjoy it for decades.

“He was a fastpitch pitcher that went all over the country pitching in softball tournaments for 20-plus years,” Kelcy says.

Lynn and Wilma passed their athleticism on to their children: Lori Leach-Eckenrode played volleyball a Arkansas State, Greg Leach played football and Western Kentucky and Todd Leach, the father of Aubrey and Kelcy, was a football All-American and golfer at Southwest Baptist University.

The softballers have cousins who are now playing football and volleyball at the collegiate level, so the Leach line of athletic talent continues to grow. And watch out for the younger sisters of Aubrey and Kelcy, 10-year-twins, who are softball players themselves.

“People tell me that I look a lot like my Grandmother and I have her competitive spirit of which I am very proud of,” states Kelcy.

“Just knowing that fact it pushes me to be the best I can possible be. I am very fortunate that I am part of her lineage and I hope that my sisters and I are able to continue with the athletic tradition that she has started.”