Max, as played by Chanté Adams, is a talented and determined pitcher who is based on three real baseball players: Mamie Johnson, Toni Stone, and Connie Morgan.
In real life, the AAGPBL was segregated — meaning no Black women were allowed to play. The original movie alludes to it in a brief but memorable scene where a Black woman (played by an uncredited extra) picks up a stray ball and impresses the Peaches with her throw. The TV remake puts Max, a Black woman, as one of the protagonists, and it digs a little deeper into how Black women who wanted to play baseball would have fit in during that era.
As Jacobson explained to People, players like Johnson, Stone, and Morgan left women's baseball behind altogether. "Max's character, played by Chanté Adams, is inspired by three women, Mamie Johnson, Toni Stone, and Connie Morgan, who went on to play in the Negro Leagues with men. Historically, the All American Girl's League did not allow Black women to try out," she said. "It was really, like, a white-passing thing. So, what was their journey? That was such a fascinating story, to create a new character inspired by them and really follow her path to find her team, too. What does that look like?"
Adams also spoke about representing these overlooked trailblazers in an interview with Essence. "There were Black women there that tried to get on those teams and couldn't. And where did their stories go?" She added, "To this day, there are only three women who have played professional baseball on a major-league level — and those three women are Black, but we don't know their names. That is who Max is representing."
