Women's Professional Baseball League makes debut

Sarah Hodel and Rachel Koehler arrived at Robin Roberts Stadium more than four hours before the first game of the Women’s Professional Baseball League. Once inside, Hodel stopped periodically for pictures as she walked along the concourse.

“Back in high school I was on my speech team and my informative speech was on women in baseball,” said Hodel, a 43-year-old athletic trainer from Duluth, Minnesota. “So as soon as I saw this happening a couple years ago it was my goal to come.”

That moment finally arrived on Saturday night in Springfield, Illinois, when Mo’ne Davis and the Los Angeles Queens rallied for a wild 10-8 victory over Denae Benites and the New York Heights in a rainy debut for the first women’s professional baseball league in the United States in almost 30 years.

“Growing up I played softball,” said Koehler, 33, of St. Paul, Minnesota. “I wanted to play baseball because going professional was always like the dream, but there (were) no opportunities. ... So now that that’s actually an opportunity and something that girls can look up to I think is amazing.”

A steady rain fell for much of the day, soaking Robin Roberts Stadium, the 101-year-old home of the WPBL’s inaugural season. But much of the crowd of more than 4,000 started lining up hours before the game, hoping to grab a Davis bobblehead on the way to the metal bleachers.

The line for the main merchandise booth stretched all the way to the outfield along one side of the ballpark.

The Firebells and Boston Hunters — the league’s other two teams — play on Sunday. A couple players from each team helped the grounds crew pull the tarp off the field after the rain subsided.

The WPBL paid tribute to the past, present and future of women’s baseball during a rain-delayed pregame ceremony. The biggest ovation of the night was for 99-year-old Maybelle Blair, who threw a ceremonial first pitch to San Francisco’s Kelsie Whitmore, one of the biggest stars of the WPBL. Blair, who serves on a WPBL advisory board, played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which ran from 1943-54 and inspired the 1992 movie, “A League of Their Own.”

The 15 regular-season games for each club and the playoffs will be held in Springfield. The ballpark has a seating capacity of 5,200, and Springfield hosted one of the earliest paid women’s games when the Blondes faced the Brunettes on Sept. 11, 1875.

While women have been connected to baseball since the beginning of the game, the first professional women’s league was the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Immortalized in the film “A League of Their Own,” it ran from 1943-54.

The AAGPBL began during World War II as a softball league before converting to baseball. Jean Faut, Doris Sams and Dottie Kamenshek were among the league’s best players. Maybelle Blair, who pitched in the AAGPBL in 1948, is on the WPBL’s advisory board.

“It was never intended to last past 1945 when it first started, but the fact that it lasts through 1954 tells you something about the importance, I think,” said Heaphy, an associate professor at Kent State-Stark.

From 1994-97, Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro managed an all-female pro team, the Colorado Silver Bullets, that barnstormed the country facing men’s amateur and semi-pro teams. The Ladies Professional Baseball League played in 1997 and part of 1998 before folding.

The Women’s Baseball World Cup launched in 2004 and will be played for the 11th time in 2027. Japan has won the last eight World Cups after finishing runner-up to the U.S. in the first two.


(AP Photo Rebecca Blackwell)