The Women’s Pro Baseball League, which launches today at a neutral host stadium in Springfield, Illinois, is not the first baseball league for women. That would be the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the World War II-era project immortalized in Penny Marshall’s 1992 flick, A League of Their Own.
But that league folded barely a decade after it started — a fate that WPBL’s advocates are working hard to avoid.
Commissioner Justine Siegel said baseball fans looking for something beyond the MLB will find more of the sport they love in the WPBL, but also something a little different. “Women play with a passion that comes from having to prove themselves their whole lives, that they belong,” she told Front Office Sports. “That passion is really addicting to watch. … I think that the fans are really going to enjoy seeing how hard they play.”
Siegel has tapped into a well of trailblazing female baseball stars, like pitcher Mo’ne Davis, who made it on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 13 after her historic 2014 Little League World Series appearance, but has had limited opportunities to play since then.
She said she hopes the current momentum around women’s sports will translate to success in Springfield, comparing the burgeoning league to the early days of the WNBA. “With this being a new league, obviously we know there are going to be challenges,’’ Davis, who will play for the Los Angeles Queens, told a local Rochester, New York, outlet ahead of a visit to the city this spring.
The 25-year-old continued: “The WNBA is flying high with Caitlin Clark’s impact and the players’ new collective bargaining agreement, but they, too, had their challenges for a long time. We’re looking at the WPBL as a stepping stone. We are going to take all the hits and bruises, but that’s only going to make it 10 times better for the generations of women baseball players who follow us.”
You can tune in to today’s sold-out game (between Los Angeles and New York) on YouTube at 6 p.m. ET. In the meantime, read on to learn the stories behind the team names — each honoring a pioneering woman in U.S. history.
Boston Hunters
The Boston team is named for Harriot Hunt, often referred to as the country’s “first woman physician” despite never earning a medical degree (she was granted approval to attend lectures at Harvard Medical School in 1850 but blocked from actually going due to her gender). The Boston resident didn’t let that deter her and practiced holistic medicine, taking a collaborative approach to healing her patients.
Los Angeles Queens
Lizzie Murphy was the Queen of the Diamond — a nickname that inspired the brand-new Los Angeles Queens. In 1922, Murphy became the first woman to play baseball against major leaguers. Already a well-known ball player in New England, she took to the diamond as part of an all-star team during an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Fun fact: LA is the only WPBL team with a baseball star as its namesake.
New York Heights
As the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement,” Dorothy Height is an appropriate pick for the New York team’s moniker. After attending college in Manhattan, she launched her career at the Harlem Young Women’s Christian Association in 1937. Two decades later, she became president National Council of Negro Women, staunchly advocating for the inclusion of women in the fight for racial equality.
San Francisco Firebells
This team honors Lillie Hitchcock Coit, known as Firebelle Lil. In 1858, when she was 15, she spotted a San Francisco firefighting crew in need of help and dropped her schoolbooks to jump into action (and encouraged other passersby to join as well). The effort worked, and she was an honorary member of the squad from that point onward — the only woman to receive such an honor.
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