New Glory Days? The Return of Women’s Professional Baseball
72 years went by so fast, since the last time women's pro baseball was played.
Photo via Getty Images, Win McNamee SplinterSports baseball
Baseball is not a man’s game. Softball is not a woman’s game.
But along the way in professional baseball history, those ideas have been metabolized as the truth. And, true enough, if a girl aspired to play professional baseball, she had to change her expectations. She had to imagine making extraordinary history. She had to watch A League of Their Own. She had to keep dreaming.
On August 1, something really freaking cool is happening. Have you heard? Women’s professional baseball is back.
The Women’s Pro Baseball League consists of four teams: Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, and in the first of a 32 game-schedule, New York takes on Los Angeles at Robin Roberts Stadium, in Springfield, Illinois, where all regular-season games will be played. And, yeah, it’s been a while. The WPBL is the first of its kind since 1954 when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) shuttered after nine years.
Long overdue, of course, but the timing is right. This moment meets another moment, as personal freedom, identity and the rights of Americans are all under attack in unimaginable ways; as we feel the weight of fear of what the future will look like for girls who will become women.
In the midst of all of the political strife and devastation, there’s something that needs our national attention: Women need to have some damn fun.
It’s difficult amid all the gross dreariness to concentrate on America’s pastimes, including baseball, arguably the most beloved. But just as women’s baseball represented something bigger during World War II, so too does the commencement of this league. Just like then, we need to keep our spirits inspired and moving. We need our passions. We need to go to a ballgame.
For six weeks, women from all over the planet will take the field: Elodie O’Sullivan, Australia, outfielder for Los Angeles! Ayuri Shimano, Japan, pitcher for Los Angeles! Scrappy Hopkins? Oh, hell yes. She’ll be behind the dish for San Francisco. Nadia Diaz with her awesomely tattooed arms will be playing third base for Boston. Then there’s Kelsie Whitmore, the first-round pick of the draft held in November. The RHP is with San Francisco. And I have to mention—squeal—Philly’s own, Mo’ne Davis. Yes! Her! The one who made Little League history as the first player in the league to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The first girl to earn a win and throw a shutout in the Little League World Series in 2014. In November, she was drafted into the WPBL as the 10th overall pick. And, bonus, original AAGPBL player Maybelle Blair will also be able to witness this new league—she just turned 99!
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The energy feels cool and exciting, and the league’s existence was truly hard fought by founder and women’s baseball pioneer, Justine Siegal, who will serve as the league’s first commissioner. Is this merely the beginning of what the future of professional baseball could and should be? For now, let’s plant ourselves firmly in the moments of (say it again with me) FUN, and good old-fashioned competition. Watching women of the WNBA shine so hard for so long, and then finally over the last few years receive a massive increase in viewership and coverage has been exhilarating. Now we as women sports fans turn our tired, irritated eyes to baseball. This is the next mountain to climb.
Women MLB fans are often caught in the cobwebs of ancient game traditions, with debates through the decades about rookies dressing as women (or how they perceive women), whether domestic violence matters if, ya know, the player didn’t hit his wife or girlfriend on the actual field during a game, and, of course, whether women’s sports are even important or profitable. To root for our teams, we’ve often had to sit with discomfort and anger, and a sense that we’re outsiders to something we deeply love; we know the same pain men do of sitting through horrible seasons, and shedding tears when improbable championships were won. If you’re still a dude tossing baseball quizzes at women fans online or at a bar, trying to make them prove their fandom is legitimate, you’re an absolute mess. Get help.
Girls are taught, often unconsciously, that baseball is a father-son game, an experience so beautifully captured in Field of Dreams. But daughters felt that too. Families bonded over baseball. The stopping point—when gender became a thing—was when the question of actually playing baseball messed up all the fun. This has long been a reality check for girls with baseball dreams.
Girl? You play softball. Boy? You play baseball and you can be a wealthy superstar one day and do car commercials and date, maybe marry, the hot girl of the year. Marketing baseball to girls was a bit harder. They weren’t permitted to play Little League until 1977, and certainly, the glory of the game has continuously centered on men, in part, yes, because they could envision a career in it. But also, like other major sports, men felt entitled to the language of sports as their own.
Women who love baseball have invested most of their attention in Major League Baseball even when it seemed hellbent on insulting them. Through the years, women have been offered special days that are apparently intended to include them as serious baseball fans— Phillies ‘Behind the Diamond’, Braves ‘Women’s Baseball Clinic’, for the little ladies?—but women’s fandom is consistently treated as an outlier, even something cute—pink glitter hats and ill-fitting women’s cut shirts (to be fair, I love some of that pink shiny baseball stuff and have purchased a couple of items through the years.)
But in the midst of those special events for lady baseball fans being thrown on the MLB schedule, women and girls who are not just baseball fans, but have an eye on a career, have seen important changes. There’s now MLB GRIT: Girls ID Tour and The Trailblazer Series. GRIT is a youth baseball league designed just for girls 18 and under. Trailblazer is an event for girls developed by MLB and USA Baseball, and takes place in the celebratory events for Jackie Robinson Day. These are bits of progress that matter, and hopefully actually create change. To paraphrase feminist icon Cyndi Lauper, girls just wanna have fun and play baseball.
“I have listened to and shared several stories of girls not being given a chance or a choice in playing baseball,” said D.A. Espinoza, creator of The Rising Fastball, a substack where he’s followed the development of the league for the past year. “[It] will be nice to share a new kind of story, not of hope but of accomplishment.”
Another “good timing” aspect for the league? Homophobia in MLB has once again risen to the surface, this time during Pride Nights that the league participated in, to the seeming consternation of a handful of bigoted players. San Francisco Giants GM Buster Posey self-detonated in a press conference about homophobic players and the sports and LGBTQ community responded with righteous despair.
Needless to say, baseball fans in San Francisco could use another (a new?) team to root for. And although Espinoza says that players in the WPBL largely “haven’t been politically outspoken,” he adds that “There are many, the league included, that support the LGBTQ+ community and celebrate Pride Month.”
As we recover from this latest MLB disaster, we’re also bearing witness to the morbid clown of a U.S. president attempting to ruin everything that’s been built over decades of progress. But, we’re also bearing witness to the unwavering, competitive spirit of humanity, and of Americans who refuse to back down to his army of genuinely terrifying ghouls pretending to play action heroes in the war game of their fantasies.
This month we are choosing to exult and commune in the FIFA World Cup, and with that feeling of collective celebration comes a sense that we can take a break from the clown and his ghouls. In Philadelphia, we wait for the arrival of our still unnamed WNBA team debuting in 2030, and we will wait for the day we have our own women’s baseball team as well. Philly, where there’s an annual grease pole climbing contest at the Italian Market Festival, thrives on competitive chaos, so it’s disappointing not to be part of the WPBL league (yet). But wherever you’re from, you’re part of this if you want to be. Pick the team closest in proximity to you! Pick a player that you’ve watched some college video of! Pick the player who has the coolest name! (Scrappy Hopkins, obviously.)
The WPBL represents a major shift in the guardianship of professional baseball. And the women participating represent the realization of a passion fulfilled. But let’s add to that, baseball fans: It is of the utmost importance that watching this inaugural season unfold across the summer months be a wildly fun time.
“What I’m most excited about,” Espinoza said, “is having the conversation turn around and say, ‘did you catch last night’s game?’”
In other words, play ball. We’re ready.
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