On Sept. 5, 1954, the Kalamazoo Lassies were already ahead by one run in the ninth inning when RBI singles by June Peppas and Chris Ballingall helped put away the 1954 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League championship.
It was a great game. It was also the league’s last.
The AAGPBL, founded in 1943 to keep interest in baseball high during World War II, folded in 1954 due to low revenue and the rising popularity of televised MLB games. So for the new Women’s Professional Baseball League, set to throw its first pitch Saturday in Springfield, Ill., selling out its first game is a promising start.
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The WPBL is a four-team league, with each franchise representing a major coastal city: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and New York. Co-founded in 2024 by commissioner Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach a pro men’s baseball team, the WPBL put out an open call for tryouts last October. The response illustrated just how strong the public’s appetite was for women’s baseball.
More than 600 players from around the world — three times as many as when the AAGPBL held tryouts back in the 1940s — registered interest.
The United States hasn’t had a women’s professional baseball league in almost 72 years, nor a centralized pipeline from which the WPBL could mine talent. So where did all the players come from? The league’s emerging faces took different paths to this moment.
Some, like Mo’ne Davis, played baseball as children, then switched to college softball. Others, like Ashton Lansdell, played collegiate baseball. And still others, like Kelsie Whitmore, played independently before finding stardom in Banana Ball. Numerous WPBL players have varied backgrounds and experience in both sports.
There was significant international enthusiasm as well. Japan’s Women’s Baseball League ceased operations in 2021 despite the nation’s love of the sport and its eight straight Women’s Baseball World Cup titles — six of which pitcher Ayami Sato helped win. Even Australia, a country with robust organized women’s baseball opportunities, doesn’t have a centralized league. The WPBL drafted all nine eligible Australians.
Without clear infrastructure for young girls and women to play baseball, success isn’t guaranteed for the WPBL’s build-and-they-will-come approach, especially alongside the new and successful Athletes Unlimited Softball League. But after packing Nationals Park in Washington for last summer’s tryouts, the WPBL will make more room at the table.
Kelsie Whitmore, center, played college softball, independent baseball and Banana Ball before being selected at No. 1 by the San Francisco Firebells in the WPBL Draft. (Caleb Bowlin / Getty Images)
Of the hundreds who showed up for tryouts, 120 players moved on, and only 60 made the final cut to fill out the 15-woman active rosters. The newly minted teams — the Los Angeles Queens, San Francisco Firebells, Boston Hunters and New York Heights — honor trailblazing women with their names and branding.
However, fans in those cities will have to travel to support their teams during the inaugural season, since all 30 regular-season games will be played at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Ill. The city was the site of the first recorded women’s game with a paid crowd and the home of the one-season-wonder Springfield Sallies. The stadium was chosen for its (somewhat) central location relative to the four flagship cities, and the league is promising a first-rate stadium experience for fans and players.
ESPN will stream 37 games this season, including the playoffs, giving the league a national platform to promote itself. Outside the U.S., games will be on YouTube.
The WPBL has the advantage of learning from the AAGPBL, but there will be no charm school this time around. The blockbuster movie “A League of Their Own” revived the idea of women’s professional baseball back in the 1990s — and even briefly sparked the barnstorming Colorado Silver Bullets women’s baseball team. Now the WPBL gets to make its own history — starting this weekend.
By some counts, this league has been two years in the making.
By others, it’s been much, much longer.
