@wpbl_official

Women’s Pro Baseball League on Instagram: "With the first overa…

Enjoying the Draft Stream

Ever since the WPBL first announced their future players would be drafted to teams, I was hoping we would get a live spectator event to watch the names be called. I’m incredibly satisfied with last night’s program – the league delivered. There was some initial confusion about where to watch the draft (it started on Instagram Live about five minutes before the YouTube stream began), but once my wife and I made the decision to toss away our phones and live in the moment with whatever happened on our television, we had a great time.

After a quick hello from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred1, WPBL Draft host CJ Silas reminded viewers of the night’s logistics and began calling out selections. The production value was on point: beautiful red envelopes with the names inside, high-quality graphics for each team, and we even saw video of the top selections on the field playing ball (something previously only seen in highlight reels on social media). Silas unsurprisingly did great as the host, announcing all 120 names with enthusiasm and professionalism.

@thecjsilasshow

C.J. Silas on Instagram: "SOOO ready! 🥳 We are live for the dr…

We also got to hear from a few dozen players via pre-recorded messages interspersed between selections. Many of them spoke of excitement to join their new team and their gratitude for being part of this historic moment. The reaction videos were awesome; I recommend checking out the VOD linked above if you missed it.

I could’ve taken a bit more breathing room in between the later-round picks – the whole show lasted just 55 minutes – but I appreciate how they kept things moving. All in all, I’m impressed, and Stephanie and I had a great time watching.

Next Step: Making the Roster

Aside from the high production value, I’m also pleased the draft featured the actual order of selection. I’m still learning who all these players are and the round in which they were selected last night is another datapoint to consider. We don’t actually know who made these selections – based on Alex Hugo’s comments to The Athletic in September, she was likely involved – but I don’t get the vibe that there are primary coaches/GMs/decision-makers for each unique team at this point.2

Exactly 120 players were drafted last night, 30 per team, yet only 15 are set to make each squad. Getting drafted is a very special moment that should be savored. But every one of those ballplayers will tell you the work now continues to actually make the roster. We were reminded multiple times on the broadcast last night that every player has a chance to earn a contract, even those picked in the back half of the draft.

Again, I’m curious who is making these roster decisions and what the timeline is. The League FAQ mentions a four-day training period prior to the regular season next year. Will cuts be made before that? After that? How much more exposure with league leadership have to these players between now and then, and thus how likely is it for picks #61 to #120 to jump their draft slot and make their team?

I’m guessing we won’t know these details for a while, and that’s okay. These types of logistics just get me excited as a fan is all, and I’m eager to know more. Hopefully the league gives us some milestones to look forward to between now and August 2026 to keep the hype train rolling.

New Names Called

Of last night’s 120 selections, two players were not previously on the public draft-eligible players list as far as I could tell: 2B Hanna Miura from Japan (#73 overall to San Francisco) and C Chloe Atkinson from Australia (#102 overall to New York). From the league’s round-by-round wrap-ups:

[Hanna] Miura adds another fundamentally sound infielder to San Francisco’s international core. A second baseman from Sapporo, she brings the precision and discipline emblematic of Japan’s baseball culture.

…

[Chloe] Atkinson grew up moving from tee-ball into baseball and never looked back. She spent her youth traveling and playing with the boys before becoming an impact bat at the Australian women’s nationals—where she’s hit a grand slam and captured a Golden Bat award. New York adds another young Australian catcher with real offensive upside.

Congratulations to Miura and Atkinson on their selections.

Amy from Women’s Baseball The Inside Pitch podcast has more on Atkinson below, for those like me who did not have the young catcher on their radar:

@womensbaseballinsidepitch

Women's Baseball The Inside Pitch on Instagram: "🇦🇺 @wpbl_off…

With only 120 draft slots, nearly 130 on the eligible list, and a few more not even on the list getting the call, simple math dictates a few players were bound to go undrafted. Those names are LF Tomoka Sanada, LF Nagisa Murata, CF Homa Schweers, RHP Brynn Toohey, C Caitlin Torres, RHP Chenyun Chang, RHP Kristiana Watson, SS Abigail Wright, CF Luttwanda Allen, and 1B/RHP Jordan Andreas.

Earlier this week we learned of the WPBL’s plans to expand to six teams in 2027 alongside the launch of a developmental league managed by Golden Rule Entertainment. Hopefully the league finds success and these opportunities continue to open up. With future expansion already being discussed publicly, I’m guessing this isn’t the last we’ll hear of these undrafted players.

Grading the Mock Draft

Almost three weeks ago I teamed up with three fellow WPBL enthusiasts for a mock draft. Now that the official picks are in, I thought it would be fun to see how we actually did.

Our team order was a little different, but we got four picks exactly right: I had RHP Kelsie Whitmore at #1 overall (an easy choice), Max Chase went with RHP Ayami Sato at #2, Kate Nowlin had RHP Alli Schroder at #5, and Mary Mustard took C Denae Benites at #6. 3B Ashton Lansdell and SS Samaria Benítez ended up in Los Angeles. We also correctly pegged 3B Kylee Lahners, RHP/UTL Jill Albayati, RHP Meggie Meidlinger, LF Lexi Hastings, and CF Mo’ne Davis as top 20 picks.

Not a great winning percentage for us overall, but .550 is one heck of a batting average!

LA Might Be My New Favorite

It pains me to say this so soon after the Dodgers bounced my Milwaukee Brewers from the MLB playoffs, but my new leading candidate for a favorite WPBL team might be Los Angeles.

I was previously leaning San Francisco as I spent a few years living in the Bay Area, but it would ultimately depend on who ended up on each roster. Los Angeles grabbed a pair of my favorites with their first two selections:

I was lucky enough to meet RHP Ayami Sato and 3B Ashton Lansdell at the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Both were kind enough to sign a baseball for me. I had been a fan of Lansdell since I got to watch her play a scrimmage in my hometown the year prior. I first learned about Sato after we made the decision to buy World Cup tickets, and to have all that hype and excitement pay off with a chance encounter was amazing.

Fast forward to today and both of them will be suiting up for Los Angeles, along with another favorite, relief ace Meggie Meidlinger. Don’t forget LA has Mo’ne Davis (man, it is going to be so cool to watch her take the field again) and 1B Sarah Edwards, who I wrote about last week. Caitlin Eynon (hard-throwing pitcher and sure-handed shortstop) and CF Brittany Apgar (speed demon on the basepaths and in the outfield) are two names I’ve grown excited for these last few weeks. Los Angeles loaded up in the fifth round too with 2B Bella Villarreal, OF Elodie O’Sullivan, and RHP Ayuri Shimano, all of whom you can read about in the league’s wrap-up.

@wpblnews

WPBL News on Instagram: "Meet the Los Angeles Women’s Pro Baseb…

I love a lot of picks by the other teams last night, too: UConn star LF Lexi Hastings in Boston is a perfect fit (not to mention Alli Schroder, LF Stephanie Everett, and RHP Allie Bebbere also landing in Beantown). Denae Benites is going to shine brightly in New York. I’m rooting hard for 1B Micaela Minner to join Sonoma Stomper alumni Kelsie Whitmore in San Francisco. And we’re still waiting to see where Val Perez is going to end up.

Regardless, there are too many faves in Los Angeles for me not to throw my lot in with them at this point.3 Forgive me, Pat Murphy.

Who is your favorite squad post-draft?

Social Media Dump

I mentioned on Instagram this week how hoppin’ the WPBL discourse is right now. I’ve seen so many videos, podcasts, new articles, blogs, and social media posts leading up to the draft – literally too many to keep up with.

It makes me so happy. It’s obviously impossible for me to read everything online about MLB or the WNBA. I didn’t feel that way about the WPBL a month ago, but it feels that way now. I hope fans continue to find joy in the product the league is building, the league continues to do right by their fans and players, and we all have something incredible to celebrate next summer.

I’ll finish off today’s post with a few bits of draft-related content that recently brought a smile to my face. Enjoy!

@kelsie_whitmore

Kelsie Whitmore on Instagram: "Whitmore’s went all out for the …

@stepheverett24

Stephanie Everett on Instagram: "With the 69th pick in the WPBL…

@mizzousoftball

Mizzou Softball on Instagram: "First Ever Tiger Drafted to the …

@hollyrpeete

Holly Robinson Peete on Instagram: "🎉🎉🎉🎉So proud of my Bonu…

From Annie Costabile at Front Office Sports:

[The league] evaluated 200 venues across the country in search of a stadium for the inaugural season. [WPBL co-founder Keith] Stein said they had 10 offers, but most of them included shared facilities. At Robin Roberts Stadium—which has a capacity of 5,200—the players will have ownership of the space from the time the league moves in until the season concludes, which was a priority.

Costabile’s article features a number of brand new details, including information on funding, a new partnership with Golden Rule Entertainment (who owns Robin Roberts Stadium), and quotes from Stein on today’s announcement. Don’t forget to check out the full story.

Personally, this is not what I was expecting.2 When the league made the big announcement of their first four cities in four major markets, my best guess was they were abandoning the original plan to play the entire season at one or two neutral sites. A tour of San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Boston – perhaps everyone playing a week in each city, even if they didn’t operate as traditional home-and-away destinations – seemed like a probable pivot. Instead, the entire season will take place in the Midwest as the league works to finalize the aforementioned barnstorming opportunities on each coast.

Selfishly, I’m ecstatic to be able to drive to see the first pitch of the WPBL. Stephanie and I were planning to take some time off for the Women’s Baseball World Cup and the AAGPBL Reunion in July 2026, and after today’s announcement we’ll probably look to extend our trip to include the first WPBL games as well. I previously wrote about my disappointment in the lack of Midwest representation following the city announcement, but now I imagine there’s disappointment going in the other direction from women’s sports fans on the coasts.

The plan makes logical sense: start at a neutral site, get your feet under you, and then move into the major markets as interest grows and (hopefully) the dollars roll in. If the Springfield news came first and the city announcement happened later, I don’t think many people would bat an eye. But the way in which this plan was marketed to the public will inevitably lead to confusion amongst the common sports fan. I feel for the Angeleno who read the city announcement headline on ESPN and thought they’d be able to see the LA team play in LA next year, for example.

In the league’s defense, I don’t recall seeing any promotion on social media saying “we are coming to play in New York,” nor has there been any change to the “neutral site” verbiage on the FAQ page this whole time. The messaging just feels disjointed as the hype train continues to steamroll forward. It will be paramount that the league make these games accessible to watch at home by everyone in the country and around the world, either for free on YouTube with ads, front-and-center on a popular sports TV network, or another solution.

Springfield news aside, there are some other important nuggets sprinkled in today’s announcement. As mentioned above, the WPBL will be the only occupants of Robin Roberts Stadium for the duration of their stay. This is something the league prioritized and I’m happy for it. I hope they use this uninterrupted opportunity to deck out the stadium in team and league branding to really make fans feel like they’re at a women’s pro baseball game. I hate when I go to Chicago Sky home games and everywhere I look are DePaul University signs, with a few banners of Angel Reese haphazardly displayed here and there.

Costabile’s article says the league “will expand to six [teams] in 2027.” It also reports Golden Rule Entertainment is planning on “launching and managing a developmental league” in 2027 as well. Over 600 women tried out for the WPBL and 120 will be drafted on Thursday night, but the number who will see playing time during the inaugural season is closer to 60. A development team or league to help continue the pipeline of baseball-playing opportunities for girls from Little League to the WPBL is a great idea.

The Springfield Sallies joined the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the 1948 season. 78 years later, the first pitch in WPBL history will be thrown less than five miles from the former home of the Sallies. I think that’s pretty cool.

It’s been a hot minute since the last Rundown, mostly because I’ve been distracted with everything else going on with the Women’s Pro Baseball League. Let’s get right to the latest news:

• As you know, the WPBL inaugural player draft will be streamed on Thursday, November 20th at 7pm Central. Less than a week of waiting left to go! The event is hosted by CJ Silas1 who served as announcer at the August tryouts. The night will conclude with 120 players selected in total. San Francisco was randomly assigned the first pick, followed by Los Angeles and New York, with Boston picking two before the draft snakes back around.

• Besides the obvious intrigue of seeing who is going to play for each of these four teams (and to see if my early fandom choice of San Francisco holds true once the rosters are revealed), I think I’m most excited to get some expert opinions on these players in the form of their draft slot/position. I think Mary, Kate, Max and I did a great job on our mock draft, but our opinions were formed with much less information than those actually making the selections. Is Caitlin Eynon the coveted young star I think she’s going to be? Will Claire Eccles’ knuckleball help propel her to a top 10 selection? A little more insight into who’s who before we have stats to judge them on will be neat.2

• I’m curious to see if any other draft-eligible players are publicly revealed leading up to (and possibly during) the draft. We’ve seen some shifting in the draft pool already – in late October, a right-handed American right fielder named Mia Kruspe disappeared from the website. She recently attended the Major League Baseball Girls Baseball Breakthrough Series so I imagine this isn’t the last we’ll be hearing of her, but she’s the first name I’ve seen that was removed from the list.

• Then there’s Val Perez, an infielder with the US Women’s National Team and head coach of the Firefighters in Banana Ball. The WPBL posted a photo in August announcing Perez signing with the league, but her name is not currently on the list of eligible players like everyone else who signed early. I reached out to Perez on Instagram and she told me she’ll be playing in the league next year. I assume this is just some clerical/website error, but it gives me pause leading up to next Thursday: the list we can see publicly might not be 100% accurate.

• That brings us to our newest addition to the pool – the first since Jill Albayati, the O’Sullivan sisters, and Rosa Del Castillo entered in early October. 1B Sarah Edwards from Bay Shore, NY is officially eligible for the WPBL draft and was recently announced by the league as one of the top first base prospects.

@sarahhhedwards

Sarah Edwards on Instagram: "In the end it all becomes a story,…

• Edwards is a longtime softball player who started playing baseball in 2023, joining Perez on the US women’s national team. She’s also a globe-trotting instructor who became the first female on-field coach in Asian professional baseball earlier this year. I recommend reading Michael Clair’s article on Edwards joining the CTBC Brothers to hear more about her recruitment and trailblazing year in Taiwan. It’s safe to say Edwards will bring leadership and great intangibles to whichever team drafts her.

• With Perez and now Edwards, the draft pool stands at 128. It’s important to note that “not all drafted players are guaranteed roster spots or contracts” according to the press release. 120 women will hear their name called and then the work continues to try and make the final cut.

• Another nugget hidden in the bottom of the presser: trading opens up on New Year’s Day 2026. I’m intrigued to see how teams approach roster construction. I wonder if we’ll see any moves right away, or if managers will wait until they see how the team fits together during the four-day preseason training session before shaking things up.

• If you’re a WPBL fan located near New York City, California’s Central Coast, or Doncaster, Australia – congratulations! There’s a draft watch party going on near you. Check out these Instagram posts about parties at Wilka’s Sports Bar (NY), the Doncaster Baseball Club (AU), or the Milestone Tavern (CA) for more details. Stephanie and I plan to enjoy the draft from our couch with a beverage in hand – how do you plan to take in this historic moment? Let us know in the comments below.

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Join us for the inaugural WPBL Draft and be part of this historic milestone.

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Now we know when the draft will be, but we don’t yet know who will be drafted and where. As we wait for the official selections, I decided to team up with three of my favorite WPBL content creators for a fun project.

Welcome to our 2025 WPBL Mock Draft!

The Exercise and Selection Criteria

The league has not announced the draft order yet, so each of the four mock managers were randomly assigned a team and a draft position. We opted for snake style just like we’ll see on November 20th. Finally, our mock draft will consist of the first five rounds2 – we’ll each pick a quintet of players to form the foundation of our burgeoning franchise.

Everyone currently listed on the official WPBL prospect ranking page is eligible to be drafted. Beyond that, the selection criteria is completely up to each manager.

Obviously, the real managers of these teams have access to way more information than we do. The four of us have limited experience watching these players and their stats can be hard to find online. That being said, each person can build their team weighing whatever factors they like: video highlights, softball or national team performance, a player’s story or background, marketing opportunities, vibes, personal fandom, and anything else that comes to mind.

The goal is to have fun, dream on the future of these rosters, and channel our excitement for the real thing.

Meet the Managers

Justin Jabs • New York • Pick #1

Justin regularly writes about the Women’s Pro Baseball League on his blog WPBLfan.com. He is a data analyst by day and enjoys playing board games, video games, and watching movies when he’s not following baseball. Justin lives in Milwaukee with his wife (and fellow WPBL fan) Stephanie. You can find him on Instagram @wpblfan.

Max Chase • Boston • Pick #2

Max (@maxchase52 on Instagram) hosts “The Happy Chasers” podcast, an unofficial independent podcast about the Women’s Pro Baseball League. You can find the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the show’s website. He has done play-by-play for Division I sports, mainly at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Max’s main goal is to provide play-by-play for a WPBL team, if he can figure out the housing and land a remote full-time job if needed. He is also trying to get over the Mariners’ loss in the ALCS. In his spare time, Max enjoys distance running, acting, and watching movies with his husband Shane.

Mary Mustard • San Francisco • Pick #3

Mary is a trans woman writer based in Albany, New York. She organizes and plays in a queer baseball club (@albanyqueerbaseball on Instagram) and blogs about the WPBL at Towards a More Perfect Game on Substack. Other work, including zines about women’s baseball, can be found at marymustardswebsite.siter.io.

Kate Nowlin • Los Angeles • Pick #4

Kate is a content creator out of Atlanta, GA who tells the stories of the Women’s Professional Baseball League. She runs @wpblnews on Instagram/TikTok/YouTube and aims to do her part in helping spur the growth of women’s baseball. When she’s not making videos she enjoys playing video games, drawing, and going on adventures with her husband. (@wpblnews is not affiliated with WPBL.)

2025 WPBL Mock Draft

Enough table-setting – let’s get drafting!

#1OA – RHP Kelsie Whitmore, 27

JUSTIN JABS: It’s hard not to go with the face of the league with the first overall pick. Kelsie Whitmore is one of the most famous women ballplayers of this generation, in part because of her time competing in men’s leagues over the last decade: 57 innings pitched with the Sonoma Stompers, Staten Island FerryHawks, Oakland Ballers, and Savannah Bananas. Whitmore has spoken about the need to adapt and change her pitching style while playing for these teams and her excitement to get back to her roots and just be herself when competing in the WPBL. A marketable star once again pitching to her strengths? Sounds like a great pick to me.

Many WPBL players will both pitch and hit, and Whitmore is no slouch on offense. Based on my fuzzy math she has a near-.400 OBP across a decade of Women’s National Team performances. She was the first player announced to join the WPBL and she is the first off the board in our mock draft.

MAX CHASE: If I had gotten #1, it would have been either Whitmore or Sato. Excellent choice, no surprise.

MARY MUSTARD: I think we all would’ve taken her number one. Simple as that.

KATE NOWLIN: Mary is absolutely right.

#2OA – RHP Ayami Sato, 35

MAX CHASE: The old adage goes, “Pitching wins championships”. Sato has won four Women’s Baseball World Cups for Japan and is arguably the best women’s pitcher of all time. It’s hard not to go with her at #2 with Whitmore already taken, although I briefly considered Mo’ne Davis. Sato is also a natural choice for Boston geographically because she has pitched relatively close to here already (Toronto Maple Leafs). I would expect them to set the pace and give New York a run for its money with this selection.

JUSTIN JABS: I also considered Sato at #1. We don’t know how player movement year-to-year will work yet, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption that whoever drafts these players will get to retain their services for a few seasons. As such, I decided to go with the younger player in Whitmore.

#3OA – LHP Rosa María del Castillo, 28

MARY MUSTARD: del Castillo hit and pitched well for Mexico in the latest World Cup qualifier and group stages, a key part in assisting her team in earning Mexico’s first berth in the group stage and final stage. The lefty is said to sit 80 on her fastball and throws a pretty solid curve. She is also decorated in Mexico, competing for her home state of Puebla. She has been called the MVP of Mexican Women’s Baseball. I wanted to scoop one of the few decorated lefties to build my team around, and del Castillo fits the bill.

MAX: Love this pick! I wasn’t expecting del Castillo to be drafted this high but it’s a really solid choice.

#4OA – 3B Ashton Lansdell, 24

KATE NOWLIN: Lansdell is possibly my favorite player and grew up only 15 minutes away from where I live. She is a die-hard Braves fan, so I don’t have the edge there, but when she participated in the Home Run Derby X, she wore the Dodgers uniform so maybe! I think that LA fans would love her energy and personality. Her time with the Party Animals has brought out a confidence that would shine in LA. She’s a home-run hitter and loves to steal bases. What’s not to love?

JUSTIN: Lansdell is also my personal favorite player in the draft. She’s so fun, plays amazing defense, and led off for Team USA during their recent tournament play as well. She was the first person I thought of when the WPBL was announced and I’m so happy she’s involved – she’s going to be a star.

Learn more about Ashton Lansdell by checking out Kate’s latest video:

@wpblnews

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#wpbl #womensbaseball #womenssports #baseball #bananaball"

#5OA – RHP Alli Schroder, 23

KATE: Alli is a Canadian badass. Stats-wise the sample is small, but the level is high, she’s proven herself as a dangerous pitcher. As far as Alli and Los Angeles, I’m rolling the dice. She was rooting against LA in the World Series, lol.

MAX: “Schro” is super humble in person and her fastball is just as powerful as the water that comes out of her fire hose. Yes, Schroeder fights fires in Canada when she’s not pitching. LA gets a great badass. Well done, Kate.

#6OA – C Denae Benites, 24

MARY: Benites was the starting C for the USA WNT this latest World Cup, where she posted some power numbers. I wanted a good hitter and a reliable catcher, and on top of her skills Benites has been one of the league’s public advocates and an advocate for women’s baseball in general; having a star piece like that seemed smart.

MAX: Darn, Mary, I was really hoping that Benites would drop down to #7! She is deserving of being picked that high, so well done. Great walk-off homer in the 2024 WSBC and she’s not afraid to dive for foul balls. Solid chemistry with her pitchers as well.

JUSTIN: Agreed. Denae is so much fun to watch – her enthusiasm and hype for the game is unrivaled. A true cornerstone at catcher, great pick.

KATE: All I can say is I’m jealous. I love the energy she brings to every game.

#7OA – 3B Kylee Lahners, 32

MAX: Gimme that power hitter at the hot corner! I’m passing on Mo’ne Davis again because I can’t pass up the opportunity to take a proven power bat and fielder. Lahners’ talent was on full display at Nationals Park in August. Sadly, her stats page is down at the moment at USABaseball.com, but Boston fans will be quickly won over and will probably see a few home runs.

#8OA – SS Caitlin Eynon, 22

JUSTIN: I wanted a young position player with my second round pick, and even with personal favorites Lansdell and Benites off the board, I’m pumped to pick up Eynon out of Australia. Her head coach once called her “a top three shortstop in the world” and she’s one of the hardest throwing female pitchers in Australia. Her dedication to the game is admirable, she spent time playing in Japan two years ago. She’s a rising leader in the game and will make for a great cornerstone for New York.

#9OA – RHP/UTL Jill Albayati, 21

JUSTIN: I’ve mentioned my first exposure to women’s baseball on the blog before – an exhibition game I attended in August 2023. Albayati was playing in that game. I don’t remember specifics of the box score, but I walked away from the ballpark thinking “that gal can hit.” She solidified this impression a year later when I saw her take Ayami Sato deep in the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup.

MAX: Great utility player who can “do it all.”

#10OA – CF/LHP Claire Eccles, 28

MAX: This is getting harder. I’m picking Eccles mainly because of her versatility at the center field and pitcher positions...and she’s a lefty. Utility players will be the backbone of the WPBL.

#11OA – RHP Sydney Barry, 19

MARY: One of the youngest eligible players at 19, Barry has a good story, coming out of small town Alberta where she helped the provincial team win bronze in the national tournament. I watched some recruiting videos of her work and I liked her swing and her pitching form.

#12OA – LF Lexi Hastings, 23

KATE: I actually hadn’t heard of Lexi until she tagged me in one of her posts and I looked her up. What I learned is that she is UConn Softball’s all time leader in runs scored + stolen bases and was the Big East Player of the Year. I’m very excited about her transition to the WPBL and think I have as good odds as any getting her in LA.

JUSTIN: I also wasn’t aware of Lexi before the WPBL tryouts, but she’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. She’s shared some great videos on Instagram about her personal journey, and the highlights from the 2025 Women’s National Team Development Program look good. Great pick!

#13OA – CF Luttwanda Allen, 26

KATE: I wasn’t able to find a ton of information on Luttwanda, but what I did find made me think that she’s a player with potential. She may not be as flashy on paper as some of my other picks, but I just have a hunch. I can’t explain it.

JUSTIN: Hunches help win championships. I respect following your gut!

#14OA – 2B Denver Bryant, 22

MARY: Hard hitting infielder for South Carolina program; played a year with World Professional Fastpitch. I liked her pro experience and her hitting ability to compliment my two pitcher selections.

MAX: Solid pick. She had an impressive showing at the Nationals Park scrimmages. I predict she’ll be a fan favorite.

#15OA – 2B Isabella Villarreal, 19

MAX: I came across a feature story on Villareal and was really impressed. From what I saw in DC, she has a bright future ahead of her. Plus, according to USABaseball.com, she can also play shortstop and pitch if needed.

#16OA – RHP Meggie Meidlinger, 37

JUSTIN: Meggie is a pro’s pro. She’s been pitching for the women’s national team longer than I’ve been a baseball fan, collecting 24 strikeouts across nearly 33 innings of international competition since 2006. She hasn’t even allowed a run in these high-profile games since 2022. Her teammates love her – she was recognized as USA Baseball’s Sportswoman of the Year in 2025 – and she’s a dominating force out of the bullpen. If New York is going to have success out of the gate, Meidlinger will be a big part of it.

MAX: Meidlinger threw a lot at the Nationals Park scrimmages, and for good reason. Her command was on point. Great pickup for New York, no question.

#17OA – 1B Andréanne Leblanc, 24

JUSTIN: My team’s a little pitching-heavy at the moment, so I’ll round out this exercise by grabbing a switch hitter from the Canadian Women’s National Team.

During the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup, Leblanc played 9 games against the best competition in the world and went 8-for-19 with 5 extra-base hits, 9 RBIs, and 2 walks. Among those at the World Cup who are also in the WPBL draft pool, only Kylee Lahners had an OPS better than Leblanc’s mark of 1.162.

MAX: Completely forgot about LeBlanc when I shouldn’t have. That’s a fantastic pickup as well.

#18OA – CF Mo’ne Davis, 24

MAX: Okay, so she isn’t a national team player, but there is no question that Davis has speed in the outfield and the basepaths--and is PR gold. She’s already signed to the WPBL and has a video on the league website’s home page, so I figured I might as well scoop her up having passed on it for quite a while now. The hitting will come with time. This pick puts Davis geographically close to her hometown of Philadelphia, sweetening the pot for the league’s storylines. She DH’ed at the first public scrimmage in DC, and she will be my DH as well for Boston. Oh yes, and backup outfielder and pitcher. Another utility player for the win. Notice a theme here?

JUSTIN: Mo’ne is off the board! I’m excited to see what she does. Her first time toeing the pitching rubber for the WPBL is going to be appointment television.

#19OA – RHP Ayuri Shimano, 21

MARY: Reported to be an ace for her high school in the women’s national high school tournament in Japan, Shimano was recruited for an amateur women’s team under the banner of the legendary Yomiuri Giants of Tokyo.

MAX: For those who don’t know, most of the Japan women’s national team’s roster that won the 2024 World Cup actually isn’t in the draft pool--Sato being one of the few exceptions. There are major cultural differences between baseball in Japan and the US--I highly recommend Robert Whiting’s book “You Gotta Have Wa” if you are curious about that. I also know many of the Japanese players are extremely loyal to their country--nothing wrong with that. For the record, I really wanted to pick multiple players from that 2024 team and then found out they weren’t on the list. Having said all that, I love that Mary’s willing to roll the dice picking Shimano. Japan did have a women’s pro baseball league for quite a few years before COVID-19, and the culture there puts heavy emphasis on self-discipline and self-improvement. I have no doubt San Francisco would be rewarded picking her.

JUSTIN: Wow - this is a super cool pick! San Francisco’s pitching is stacked.

#20OA – SS Samaria Benítez, 23

KATE: In 2023 Samaria was named the WBSC Number 1 Baseball World Cup Play of the Year for an amazing play at shortstop, but this isn’t the only reason I picked her. She is used to competing at a high level and at the 2025 Pan American Women’s Baseball Championship she recorded a .500 batting average. I also think that LA would make sense location-wise, as she is from Mexico.

Closing Thoughts

New York

Kelsie Whitmore, Caitlin Eynon, Jill Albayati, Meggie Meidlinger, Andréanne Leblanc

JUSTIN: I’m happy with how my draft turned out. Grabbing Kelsie Whitmore instantly puts New York on the map, and helps tap into local fans who saw her pitch with the Staten Island FerryHawks. A lot of talent went off the board between my first round (#1 overall) and second round (#8 overall) picks – talent I really would have liked to add – but overall I think we have a good foundation of a team. Eynon will be key to shoring up the defense of my pitching/offense-focused squad.

Boston

Ayami Sato, Kylee Lahners, Claire Eccles, Isabella Villarreal, Mo’ne Davis

MAX: Also happy with things on my end. Sato gives Boston strong pitching instantly. I have a ton of flexibility with lineups given the versatility of Eccles and Davis. Villareal and Lahners are solid at their positions defensively and Lahners will set the tone for the hitters. This is a great foundation for my team. Of course, eventually two catchers will need to be drafted.

San Francisco

Rosa María del Castillo, Denae Benites, Sydney Barry, Denver Bryant, Ayuri Shimano

MARY: I am pretty interested to see if my picks end up going high. A lot of my first choices ended up being taken by others, which is the nature of the game. Sydney Barry I probably wouldn’t have taken so high, it was a more random choice from lower on my list. But I have the feeling the others I chose will go far. This exercise provided the opportunity to dig into more options, and now I feel much more ready to evaluate the real picks as they come.

To read more of Mary’s thoughts on the WPBL draft and learn about another dozen cool players, check out the latest post on her Substack:

towards a more perfect game: an unofficial wpbl blog

Wishcasting the WPBL Draft

Last week, I was invited by Justin Jabs of the Women’s Pro Baseball Fan Blog to participate in a mock Women’s Pro Baseball League inaugural draft alongside Kate Nowlin of @wpblnews and Max Chase of the Happy Chasers podcas…

Read more

5 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · mary mustard

Los Angeles

Ashton Lansdell, Alli Schroder, Lexi Hastings, Luttwanda Allen, Samaria Benítez

KATE: This was my first mock draft and I had fun! I’m not sure how I did, but I love the players I picked. I think any team with my picks would be a strong one. I’m excited to see how it turns out!

Those are our picks. There are many more players each of us wanted to grab, but this post is over 3,000 words already and we have to cut the exercise off somewhere. 🤣 A huge shoutout and thank you to Kate, Mary, and Max for coming along on this ride with me – be sure to check out all their great work mentioned above.

How do you think we did? Which players did we miss out on that you would’ve taken earlier? Which team is best set up for success for the rest of the draft? Who would you have taken in the first round? Let us know in the comments and be sure to vote in the poll below.

After taking a few days to further collect my thoughts and feelings, I wanted to dive a bit deeper on the news.

Team Quantity and Branding

Early press releases for the league cited plans to launch with six teams in 2026. Tuesday’s announcement called San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston the “First Four” teams. Considering all that together, fans whose cities did not get picked might be wondering if a fifth and sixth team are on the horizon – maybe they’ll have more luck with the next reveal.

I reached out to WPBL PR Director Natalie Mikolich to help clarify. She confirmed the inaugural season will, in fact, only have four teams. I also asked if we’ll see team nicknames/additional team identity down the road, or if the WPBL will follow the Professional Women’s Hockey League example of just rolling with city names in the beginning.

“We will be doing a brand unveil for each team prior to [the first season],” Mikolich said via email.

Back when I thought teams might be branded without being tied to a location, I wrote a piece brainstorming a few names. Now that they actually have cities picked out I’d imagine the branding is more location-specific. I’m pumped to see what they come up with.

Disappointment in the Midwest

When excitement and speculation about the cities started heating up, I did not have any realistic hopes or dreams that there would be a team anywhere close to me. Yes, I thought a team in Rockford would be cool with the upgrades coming to Beyer Stadium, but everything I read up until that point exclusively mentioned the Northeast.

So when I saw California get two teams, I was honestly a little bummed at the middle of the country being left out – for now, at least. I hadn’t considered anywhere besides the East Coast an option until we already had the news in hand.

Pretty much every major news outlet that writes a story about the WPBL mentions A League of Their Own and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Understandably so. And where did Maybelle Blair, Jean Faut, and Dottie Kamenshek play ball? The Midwest, of course. It seems like an area that would be a great fit for a WPBL team given their deep, historical connection to the women’s game.

To be fair, women’s baseball fans in the Midwest will have plenty to do next summer. The AAGPBL Players Association is hosting their annual reunion in Rockford, Illinois from July 22nd to 26th1. The International Women’s Baseball Center is hosting the group stage for the Women’s Baseball World Cup that same week. Baseball for All Nationals is in Rockford at the same time as well, although that event doesn’t really strike me as a spectator-vibe.

Who knows – the WNBA added two teams for their second season. Maybe if the WPBL is successful enough it will follow suit and expand to Chicago2 before long, and the World Cup games and AAGPBL reunion are enough to tide us over in the meantime. Until then, my wife Stephanie and I will be tallying up our Southwest Rapid Rewards points and eagerly awaiting the schedule release.

Early Pick for My Fandom

Shortly after the announcement, I was chatting with Kate Nowlin (who runs the great @wpblnews Instagram account) and she asked me what team I might support. I likely won’t pledge my allegiance to one of these franchises until after the draft – with no team to root for within driving distance, who is wearing the uniform is much more important to me than the team itself.

For example: Ashton Lansdell, Denae Benites, and Meggie Meidlinger are some of my personal favorites from our visit to Thunder Bay during the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup. Allie Bebbere, Lexi Hastings, and Micaela Minner are just a few early favorites amongst the many players whose stories I’ve gotten to know since the tryouts. If a team ends up with three or four of those players on their roster, there’s a good chance a shirt with their team logo ends up in my shopping cart.

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Independent of the roster or coaching staff decisions – I probably lean San Francisco. Stephanie and I lived in the Bay Area from 2017 to 2020. She worked in San Francisco and I worked in Oakland. I have a lot of fond memories from my late twenties tied to that area and some of my dearest friends still live out there. It would be a real treat to visit them next year and watch these women play ball together.

And hey, depending on how loose the boundaries are for these city assignments, I hear there’s an underappreciated stadium in the East Bay with a ton of history that could easily be converted back to baseball… 👀

I kid. (Mostly.)

Further Reading

If you’re looking to read more thoughts and opinions on the city reveal, I’d recommend checking out towards a more perfect game: an unofficial wpbl blog by Mary Mustard.

I really enjoyed her most recent piece (linked below). In it, she discusses a potential missed opportunity with minor league baseball towns, the competition the league will face in these mega-markets, the lack of Canadian representation, and some interesting thoughts on the team color schemes.

towards a more perfect game: an unofficial wpbl blog

The Women’s Professional Baseball League Will Have A Home.

The next stage of the Women’s Professional Baseball League rollout is here! WPBL New York, WPBL Boston, WPBL San Francisco and WPBL Los Angeles will be the first four teams to begin play for 2026 at yet unannounced venues…

Read more

6 months ago · 3 likes · 4 comments · mary mustard

Lots of great stuff in there, including things I hadn’t yet considered before reading her work. Check it out!

Where Will They Play?

We now know the cities that will represent the first four WPBL teams. The next question, among many, is where will they actually play? As I write this, the League FAQ site still reads: “The season will take place at one or two venues for the inaugural season. The location will be announced shortly.”

If I had to guess, the FAQ might just be a little out of date. It would be a little shocking in my opinion for the league to make a big announcement about these huge markets and not actually play a game in each city during their inaugural season. Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts said in an Instagram Reel shared by the league: “I’m just really proud that Boston was announced as home to one of the women’s professional baseball teams.” It certainly feels like New Englanders, Angelenos, and so on will get to see their teams up close in person in 2026.

From Tuesday’s press release:

In 2026, the League will feature a regular season, playoffs and all-star competition which will be held at a neutral venue.

There are four weeks in the regular season – could we see all four teams stop and play a week in each city, showcase style? That would help keep travel costs down, certainly. The neutral venue mentioned above, is that for all of the games, or just the all-star competition? If the regular season and playoffs are on the coasts, then the all-star festivities could be a great way to get the Midwest involved. Or maybe they return to the location of the tryouts and continue their relationship with Nationals Park in Washington.

More to come. In the meantime, who are you thinking of rooting for?

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From the league’s official release:

Los Angeles — Bright lights. Boundless energy.

A city that thrives on performance and personality, Los Angeles will bring the star power and excitement that define its sports culture. Expect flair, competition, and a roster built to entertain.

San Francisco — Innovation meets tradition.

From the Golden Gate to the diamond, San Francisco’s team reflects the city’s creative spirit and resilience. The Bay Area’s baseball community has long been passionate—now it has a new team to rally behind.

New York — Grit. Glamour. Greatness.

Few cities embody baseball quite like New York. With its fierce pride and legendary rivalries, NY sets the perfect stage for the WPBL to shine under the brightest lights in sports.

Boston — Where the past meets progress.

A city steeped in baseball history embraces the future with open arms. Boston’s team will stand on the shoulders of generations of fans and players who have defined the sport’s legacy.

Honestly, I’m shocked.

In the beginning, the vibe coming from the league (and accompanying reporting) pointed to one or two neutral sites located somewhere in the northeastern United States. I previously wrote about smaller states like Connecticut and New Hampshire being on the table based on reporting I had read. Instead, we’re getting four of the biggest baseball cities imaginable – this is incredible and bodes well for the league.

My expectations for the city reveal started to grow once players began posting on social media asking for predictions/suggestions. Why ask us to guess if the answer is going to be timid? In the end, this news far exceeds those expectations. Despite some personal sadness for baseball fans in the Midwest (Chicago would have been incredible and on par with these choices, in my opinion), the fact that the WPBL will be playing in these major markets is great. As the release said, these markets are “ready to set the tone for a league built to last.”

Lots of questions are buzzing around in my head at the moment. How does travel work now? Will each of these cities have a specific “home” team associated with them, or will all teams in the league travel from city-to-city, showcase style? What will the team branding actually look like, and when will we see that? When (and how) will the draft take place? More announcements are in our future, I’m sure.

If you live near one of these major cities and are particularly hyped for today’s announcement, the league has some new merchandise available for you to purchase. (The merch actually dropped about five minutes before the announcement this morning, instantly sending my head spinning.)

Now we get to see who won that signed baseball.

I’ll have more for you in the coming days and weeks; these are just my “breaking news” initial reactions after the announcement. Be sure you have your free subscription to WPBLfan.com locked and loaded so all the latest news and analysis goes right to your inbox, and give me a follow on Instagram @wpblfan as well.

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Today is a huge day for the league and budding WPBL fans everywhere. I’d love to hear from you – what do you think of the city announcement? Chime in below.

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Not every prospect in the WPBL draft pool follows Major League Baseball, but those who have been tuning in are enjoying this year’s drama. “The postseason is great,” RHP Claire O’Sullivan told me during our conversation on Instagram1. “It’s next level baseball and I love watching it.”

Over a dozen Canadians are on the draft list, and it’s no surprise who many of them are rooting for this October. “I have been brought up as a huge Blue Jays fan and so that is definitely who I am rooting for this postseason,” said Saskatchewan native RF Addie Ziebart. “I think this postseason has been really exciting with the Blue Jays beating the Yankees on their home turf … I’m excited to see how it plays out, but I’m hoping it’s with the Blue Jays winning a World Series!”

RHP Allie Bebbere is a Toronto Blue Jays fan like Ziebart, although as an Australian her path to fandom is a bit more unique. Bebbere was told to “pick a team” when she started playing baseball. She landed on the Blue Jays and has loved them since:

It’s kinda funny how I picked. My favourite TV show is Gilmore Girls2 and that was filmed in Ontario, so: Blue Jays.”

Bebbere says she is “very invested” this postseason and is hopeful the team’s good vibes and off-the-field bromances will lead to the first Blue Jays World Series win in her lifetime. “I know from personal experience that the fun you have with your teammates off the field can really help you on the field,” she said. “I’m excited to see these guys keep playing and I am rooting for them to take it all the way.”

Standing in the way of Bebbere and the Blue Jays’ dreams? The Seattle Mariners. C Alexia Jorge is a New York Yankees fan but she’s cheering for Seattle the rest of the way. “Cal Raleigh is an icon as a catcher in the league and I am rooting for him and the Mariners,” Jorge said. “I’m also a catcher so I’m biased, but he should be the AL MVP3.”

“I’m rooting for the Mariners,” said RHP Arwen McCullough. “I have family in Seattle and I love an underdog.”

As a Boston Red Sox fan who has “grown up hearing about championship droughts,” LF Stephanie Everett is on the Mariners train with McCullough. Everett said: “We love an underdog!”

McCullough said she was “on the edge of her seat the whole time” while watching the epic fifteen-inning Game 5 between the Mariners and Detroit Tigers. 2B Bella Villarreal from Newport, Michigan still loves her Tigers although she is disappointed with the loss. “They had it but lost it with the littlest things,” Villarreal said. “You can’t win a game without hitting and their hitting wasn’t there.”

Villarreal thinks top prospect Max Clark would be a “good fit” for the Tigers next year as they try to return to the playoffs. “[The team] is only getting better. They have risen out of nowhere, and they are not going to stop until they get that big win,” she said.

Like McCullough, familial connections inform 1B Micaela Minner’s rooting interests for the League Championship Series. A Cleveland Guardians fan at heart, Minner is pulling for the Los Angeles Dodgers to advance.

“My sister lives out in California and she’s a huge Dodgers fan, so I’ve got to represent for her,” Minner explained. “Plus, I just love watching Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts play – they make the game look effortless.”

Hoping for your favorite players to advance often informs the rooting interest of those without specific team allegiances. Like Minner, OF Elodie O’Sullivan loves watching Betts on the field: “I like that he does it all; he can play outfield and shortstop. He is a strong contact hitter. He isn’t your stereotypical guy who is huge in stature but he is so consistent.”

Thus, the O’Sullivan sisters are cheering for the Dodgers as Claire’s favorite player is Freddie Freeman. “I like the way he plays the game and the person that he is,” she said.

On the other side of the NLCS, 1B Sabrina Robinson is supporting the Milwaukee Brewers of all the teams remaining, saying, “I used to love the Yelli and Belli duo a few years back!”

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“I was born in New York City and I’m a die hard Yankees fan, so that’s where my loyalty starts,” Robinson continued. “Once the Yankees were out, I started rooting for Philly since I coach girls from there and it just felt right to support their city … Overall it’s been a fun postseason to watch, but I’m definitely hoping for a different outcome next year.”

I’m with Sabrina – as I type this, my wife and I are getting ready to head to American Family Field to hopefully see the Brewers beat the Dodgers in NLCS Game 1. This year is the first time I’ve been able to watch Brewers playoff baseball in person, a real treat as we never made it to October when I was an employee with the team back in the day.

Who are you rooting for this postseason? Let me know in the comments below.

I usually like to post a different, standalone article1 between Rundowns, but I’ve been saving my typing power/mental energy for whenever the Women’s Pro Baseball League drops their team announcement. Onto the rest of the news while we wait:

• I’m hoping we learn team details soon – just yesterday the league said on Instagram “the big reveal is right around the corner.” The WPBL has been doing a great job fueling the discussion on potential cities. Everything we’ve heard up until this point has pointed to the inaugural season taking place at one or two ballparks in the northeastern United States. Is there any chance we see a team in the Midwest? I doubt it, but these recent Reels have me dreaming hard:

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• I’m not going to dig in too deeply on Ashton Lansdell saying “over 120 girls’ lives are about to change” (could there be more than about 15 women drafted to each roster?) or asking us to suggest four distinct cities instead of just one or two. People are talking about the league, they’re excited to hear the news, and we’ll get the details when we get them. I’m just going to enjoy the ride.

• Lansdell is on the 40 player roster announced by USA Baseball for the 2025 Women’s National Team Development Program (WNTDP). According to the release, “the event will serve as a key component in the ongoing identification and preparation of future Women’s National Team programming in 2026 and 2027” and will feature five days of seminars, workouts, and scrimmages, including games against the Canadian women’s national team.

• I count 31 players heading to the WNTDP on October 15th who are also in the WPBL draft pool: 24 for USA Baseball (Kelsie Whitmore, Kylee Lahners, Amanda Gianelloni, Alexis “Lexi” Hastings, Stephanie Everett, and Paloma Benach, among others2) and 7 for Baseball Canada (including Alli Schroder, Ela Day-Bédard, Michelle Roche, and more3). Best of luck to all involved.

• Speaking of international competition, a few weeks ago I wrote about the International Women’s Baseball Center – host of the 2026 Women’s Baseball World Cup group stage – and the Beyer Stadium renovation project. Shovels hit the ground on Monday in what was, from all accounts, an exciting and successful event. Kara Hawley at the Rockford Register Star took a ton of great photos of the ceremony you should check out.

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• This week’s podcast4 recommendation is WPBL co-founder Justine Siegal’s appearance on the 1A show: “The exploding popularity of women’s sports in 2025.” In her conversation with Todd Zwillich, Siegal discusses the league’s emphasis on being “player-centric.” She talks about pay opportunities and how the WPBL will compare to minor league baseball. The episode also spends time on the explosion of women’s sports bars across the country – the whole thing is worth a listen.

• In her piece about the WPBL, Carme Sanz-Muñoz via the Wellesley News writes “there are plans to expand the league to eight teams in 2027” based on how things go in 2026. This is the first I’ve read about considerations for the second season. Anything that far in the future needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but I wanted to pass the nugget along regardless.

• I’ll conclude today’s post with a few “quick pitches.” Since the tryouts in August I’ve read a number of player profiles5 by various news outlets. It’s great to see the league coverage continue, and I’ve enjoyed learning more about the players who will make up the November draft pool. Take a look below – you might just find your new favorite player!

  • RF Bella Espinoza-Molina spoke with Sara Cardine of the Daily Pilot on her drive to stick in baseball instead of switching to softball, and the familial support she received in Washington.

  • RF Adelaide “Addie” Ziebart is the feature of a nice, long story by Joe McFarland of Saskatchewan Dugout Stories. In it she discusses fighting for her dreams and the experience of playing at Nationals Park.

  • 2B Isabella “Bella” Villarreal told Carli Petrus of WXYZ Detroit about her eye-opening experience with Baseball For All and her hopes not just to be drafted, but to inspire.

  • 2B Denver Bryant expressed the desire to write a new chapter in women’s baseball history in her conversation with Joe Whitfield of the Albany Herald.

  • RHP Sydney Barry spoke with Vincent McDermott of Fort McMurray Today about the great support system that helped her reach the draft-eligible list.

  • Finally, 1B Adelaide “Addie” Frank talked about her nerves and excitement surrounding the tryouts with Ellie Marshall of Call Newspapers.

It’s been an exciting week around here. I set up a custom domain for the blog, I got to debut my new WPBL merch around town, and of course the inaugural draft pool recently dropped. Read onwards for more news about the Women’s Pro Baseball League:

• The league mentioned in their draft pool announcement that more names could be added in the coming weeks. They’re already making additions as 11 new names have appeared, bringing the total up to 1271. Big congratulations to new draft-eligible players IF Luciana Moreno and 1B/RHP Jordan Andreas of USA; 2B Braidy Birdsall, IF Ela Day-Bedard, OF Emily Baxter, and RHP Zoe Falardeau of Canada; and LHP Rosa Maria Del Castillo and CF Edith De Leija of Mexico.

• Two more Australians have entered the draft pool: 30 year old RHP Claire O’Sullivan and 32 year old OF Elodie O’Sullivan (rhymes with “Melody”). Baseball is a sisterhood, but Claire and Elodie bring it to the next level as they are literally sisters! It’s possible there are other examples in the draft but the O’Sullivans are the first sister pair I’ve come across. I think that’s pretty darn cool – congrats to both.

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• The latest new draft hopeful I’d like to call out is OF Jill Albayati, 21. Albayati is a big-time slugger for the US Women’s National Team whom I’ve had the privilege of seeing play up close a few times. As with most players in the pool, she can pitch as well as hit and was tabbed as USA’s starter in the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup Gold Medal game against Japan. Earlier in the tournament she hit a three-run home run off the legendary Ayami Sato (be sure to click the Instagram post below and check out the second slide for the video). Circle Albayati as a name to watch in the upcoming draft.

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• During the 2024 MLB World Series I watched2 the documentary See Her Be Her premiere on MLB Network. The film follows the journey of seven baseball players, each from a different country, through the lens of the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup. Grassroots Baseball has been on tour since February bringing the doc to the big screen all over the country, and the final showing is this Saturday, October 4th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A book signing and Q&A session featuring Kelsie Whitmore, director Jean Fruth, and others will take place after the screening. Tickets are available here, or for those unable to make it in person you can watch at home at your leisure on Amazon – I highly recommend it.

• It’s a big weekend for women’s baseball. During the last WPBL News Rundown I wrote about the substantial investment and upcoming renovations to Beyer Stadium, former home of the Rockford Peaches. The International Women’s Baseball Center (IWBC) will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the project on Monday, October 6th. Those in attendance will have an opportunity to take a photo with WPBL honorary advisory board chair Maybelle Blair and witness the start of this historic undertaking.

• Next July, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association3 will host the AAGPBL reunion in Rockford, Illinois. The IWBC will host the Women’s Baseball World Cup qualifiers – an exciting tournament set to feature many WPBL players – during that week. On Tuesday it was announced the 2026 Baseball For All Nationals will also take place at the same time. It is the largest girls’ baseball tournament in the United States and it’s possible a few far-in-the-future WPBL stars take the field. The BFA Nationals announcement rounds out what is sure to be an amazing week celebrating the past, present, and future of women’s baseball in Rockford, Illinois.

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• Robert Rivera of Who’s On First: The Show recently sat down with the umpiring crew from the August tryouts: Kelly Dine, Janet Thomas, Sophiyah Liu, and Greta Langhenry. The conversation features a touching anecdote about the umpiring at Nationals Park; it also covers the importance of baseball in Taiwan and the future makeup of WPBL umpiring crews. It’s a short conversation but well worth a watch.

• This week’s podcast recommendation is the debut episode of The Happy Chasers. Host Max Chase discusses his hopes and dreams for the WPBL plus his background as a sports announcer. I really enjoyed hearing Max’s personal stories about his familial history and why women’s sports in particular are so important to him. Max paid his own way to attend and cover the August tryouts, and subsequent episodes of his podcast feature play-by-play audio from the games that weekend. Give it a listen below:

UPDATE 10/2/25: An earlier version of this post incorrectly implied the City of Rockford was the host of the AAGPBL reunion. This event is, in fact, hosted by the AAGPBL Players Association. I apologize for any confusion.

Over 600 players attended the tryouts late last month in Washington, D.C. and now 116 find their names on the draft board. Details are subject to change until the announcement comes, but the league plans to launch with 4 or 6 teams of approximately 15 players each. That means we could see half to three-quarters of the eligible pool picked on draft day.

Speaking of details flexibility – this is just the initial pool. From yesterday’s announcement:

Importantly, the league has reserved the right to add additional names in the weeks leading up to the draft. However the league is thrilled with the calibre of the talent and the depth of its draft pool.

What women make up the draft pool? I created an infographic to help tell the story:

At the WPBL tryouts press conference, Kelsie Whitmore talked about integration and the international nature of the new league. Sixty-nine players list the United States as their home country, meaning 41% of the eligible pool features international prospects2.

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The pool contains names beyond those who attended the tryouts in Washington. Players who were unable to make the trip due to travel logistics or scheduling conflicts were allowed to submit video for consideration. Talent evaluators also leveraged their knowledge from previous international tournaments.

This is purely speculation on my part, but 20 players (17.2%) do not feature headshots that were taken during the tryouts. There could be another explanation but I think it’s probable these players were chosen based off of video submissions or previous scouting.

Age is just a number – and that number, on average, is 24 years old for a WPBL prospect. The pool ranges from currently 17 (although they will be 18 by Opening Day) to 40. Twenty-six players (22.4%) are under 20 years old, while 15 (12.9%) are 30 or older.

In addition to their age, position, and lefty/righty information, each player has a position listed3. Players were able to try out at multiple positions. It’s interesting to see only one player listed as a pitcher and a batter: CF/LHP Claire Eccles. If roster sizes stick around 15 as previously mentioned, you’ll need a lot more two-way players to cover innings, even in a shorter season. Many of these women are versatile baseball players who can both pitch and hit and play multiple positions. We’ll see just how firm these listed positions are once the season gets under way.

UPDATE 10/1/25: A kind player reached out and informed me the positions from the league website are simply the primary position listed on each player’s initial application. Every pitcher is also expected to hit and she agrees that almost everyone can play multiple positions. I appreciate the clarification! The original text of this article continues below.

Speaking of versatility, there are eight switch-hitters (6.9%) in the draft pool and 33 who bat lefty (28.4%). The pitcher group is primarily right-handed with just six lefties in the bunch when including the aforementioned Eccles.

I plan to dive deeper into the draft pool and do more research on eligible players in the coming days and weeks, but I wanted the full list and my initial takes to hit your inbox while the news was still fresh.

What do you want to know about this group of players? Blog post suggestions are always welcome!

Thankfully, the league was ready to make the most of the hype and sold more than $20,000 in merchandise to fans over the first weekend. My wife and I were among them. Stephanie went with the sand-colored hooded shirt and a coordinating hat. I wanted what the players were wearing so I got the black t-shirt and red logo hat I saw on Instagram. Our caps took a bit longer to arrive than the shirts, but a little over a week ago our ensemble was finally complete.

The 65/35 polyester-cotton blend feels nice and I love how the Levelwear shirt is tagless. The shirt runs a bit large but fits well overall and the hat size adjusts nicely. Plus, it looks great! Both items are fine additions to my closet.

I’m an obsessive avid collector. I’ve spent a fair amount of money on baseball merchandise in my day – I wouldn’t be shocked if that number approached five figures in nearly 20 years of following the game1. I love my WPBL shirt and hat but this part of my personality craves for more.

What other memorabilia would I buy in a heartbeat if it became available? Here’s a quick top ten wishlist of items I’d love to see in the WPBL store:

10. Media Guide

A pretty niche first item, I’ll admit. But hey, this is my personal top ten list!

I used to collect these books. (Heck, my face was even in a few of them back when I worked for the Milwaukee Brewers and Oakland A’s.) A media guide is a comprehensive publication about a sports team, complete with franchise history, player statistics, and background information on everyone in the organization. Click here to see an example of the 2025 Chicago Cubs media guide and Pete Crow-Armstrong’s player page.

The WPBL will feature dozens of baseball players many of us have never heard of before. I’d love a handy guide to get to know these new players better – where are they from, what is their baseball background, what sort of statistics are available? It would be a big undertaking to create, and most MLB teams just distribute the information digitally these days. But I used to love picking these up at the stadium store and would gladly buy one covering the new league.

9. Koozie

We’re a big koozie household. (Apparently they’re called foam “can coolers” in some parts of the country.) When friends come over for a drink, they’re greeted with a basket of vibrant, colorful choices from breweries, bars, and ballparks around the country.

I enjoy collecting them as they’re usually a very approachable price point if I want to bring a souvenir back but don’t want to break the bank. They can be a great conversation starter too – anyone who picks up the League Park koozie you see in the top right gets to hear about our unexpectedly amazing time we had visiting the historic ballpark, for example. It’d be cool to see koozies with the WPBL logo, plus one with each of the new teams’ branding.

8. Mini-Bat

Mini-bats are a ballpark staple. Like koozies, you could have just a general league logo bat, and/or one for each of the inaugural teams. They’re a big hit with kids and a cool item to get autographed.

Stephanie and I pick up one whenever we visit a new ballpark for the first time. We intend to plan our 2026 stadium trip around the WPBL season, and a new mini-bat would be a great addition to our collection.

7. Pride Gear

This seems like a no-brainer. WPBL Advisory Board chair Maybelle Blair came out in 2022. The league’s players and fanbase feature members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies alike. Offering pride gear is one very small way the WPBL can show their league is truly for everyone to enjoy. (Even bigger ways: fostering safe spaces for the queer community at games and amplifying the authentic voices of their player base.)

When you rep a team on your shirt, you show support to the players who wear that logo. Showing off that same team logo reimagined with the pride flag can be a different, deeper way to show support to those in the dugout and help reinforce a sense of belonging.

I love seeing pride gear at WNBA games. Sign me up if the WPBL follows suit.

6. Authentic Game-Used Memorabilia

As I’ve written before, one of the reasons I’m so excited to (hopefully!) travel to the first ever WPBL game is the opportunity to witness history.

I’ve seen some pretty cool baseball games in my life. I’m lucky to have been in the ballpark for postseason clinches, two no-hitters2, Opening Days, playoff games, player debuts, and more. That’s the great thing about baseball – you never quite know what you’re going to see when you head to the park.

In May 2026 there are going to be so many firsts. First strikeout, first home run, first hit, first win, first walk-off, player debuts, countless storylines, you name it.

Major League Baseball has a robust authentics program. Notable items receive a hologram sticker and sometimes make their way to auction. I’m not saying the WPBL needs a system quite like this, but I would absolutely jump at the opportunity to own a piece of history3. The Unrivaled 3-on-3 women’s basketball league just auctioned off a number of game-worn jerseys from their inaugural season.

WPBL game-used lineup cards, jerseys, rosin bags, cleats, bases, baseballs – send some to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, let the players keep a bunch of items, and put the rest up for auction for the fans.

5. Bobbleheads

I have a secret.

My secret is I’m obsessed with bobbleheads.

The photograph below represents approximately 0.83% of my entire bobblehead collection:

The vast majority of them are in totes in the basement as I’ve collected too many to display over the years. When scheduling baseball games to go to each summer, we’ll try to go to a bobblehead day if all else is equal. I don’t expect the WPBL to do any bobblehead giveaways during their first season – I’m sure it’s not exactly cost-effective – but being able to buy a bobblehead of the league’s biggest stars would be a real treat. If individual players are not an option, you could go for generic bobbleheads of women in each team’s jersey.

The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum is a great stop if you ever find yourself in Milwaukee. They also have a robust online store and partner with teams and organizations around the country to produce different figurines. They sell bobbles for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and a number of other female athletes past and present. I’m sure they could produce a pretty sick Kelsie Whitmore bobblehead if given the opportunity.

4. Official On-Field Baseball

If and when the league gains enough exposure, girls across the world will be dreaming of playing the Women’s Pro Baseball League. How cool would it be for them to play catch in their backyard with an official WPBL baseball, complete with the league logo, just like their idols on the field?

For those of us who aren’t lucky enough to catch a foul ball, I hope there are baseballs available for purchase. What else are we supposed to get autographs on if not an official on-field baseball?

3. Baseball Cards

Kate of @wpblnews on Instagram and I were recently chatting about how much we wanted to see WPBL baseball cards next year. (As a quick aside, you should follow Kate on your preferred social media site – @wpblnews creates impressive videos about the league and does a great job sharing all the other news, too.)

I don’t think they need to go full blind-pack trading card approach, instead just make a few team sets available for purchase. Jackie Kalafut with HJPhotoCo. Sports Photography took a bunch of great headshots of all draft-eligible players that would look pretty sweet on a baseball card. I’d happily buy the whole set. This would be another great way to get to know the players, and another vessel for fans to acquire autographs.

2. Jerseys

Another slam dunk idea, I’ll say, and one I’d be shocked if they don’t implement. Hopefully once team names are announced we’ll see t-shirts and hats with the new branding hit the online shop. I hope we see jerseys available for purchase as we get closer to the season, and I imagine we will.

1. Player Name & Number T-shirts, a.k.a. “Shirseys”

Unlike jerseys, it’s no guarantee they’ll make WPBL shirseys. Yet this is the #1 item at the top of my wishlist.

Yes, I have a ton of bobbleheads. But these player name/number t-shirts might be my true obsession. I just love wearing them! They’re less expensive than a jersey and a great way to snapshot my appreciation for a personal favorite at a particular moment in time. Half of my closet is full of t-shirts like you see above4. If I’m not in business casual wear, I’m usually in a shirsey.

Even if a team or league sells shirseys, it’s not always a guarantee you can find everyone available for order. My WNBA collection consists of Angel Reese, Marina Mabrey, Napheesa Collier, and Kiki Iriafen, but it would certainly contain a few more 2024 Chicago Sky players if they made shirts for them.

An exhaustive shirsey offering by the WPBL would do major damage to my bank account. Hopefully they sell a few players, at least. As the Futurama meme says: shut up and take my money!

Thank you for reading. I think this is my longest post to date, but as you can tell it’s a topic I am very passionate about. 🤣 I’ll fully admit there are some prohibitive logistics and overhead costs associated with stocking some of these items, but hey, it’s a wishlist after all.

What merch do you want to see? What did I miss on my top ten list? Get in touch with a comment below.

Our official Women’s Pro Baseball League hats arrived in the mail yesterday. It took a few extra weeks after the t-shirts arrived, but my wardrobe is now complete! I can’t wait to wear it around town. But first, let’s dig into the latest WPBL news:

• The New York Mets owners are stepping up to the plate with a major investment in women’s sports and the city of Rockford, Illinois. The International Women’s Baseball Center received $2.35 million in grants from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and the Amazin’ Mets Foundation to help expedite the first phase of renovation and restoration efforts for Beyer Stadium, former home of the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. It was also announced that the park surrounding Beyer Stadium would be renamed after IWBC founding director emeritus and WPBL honorary advisory board chair Maybelle Blair. You can read the full statement from the non-profit here.

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• The IWBC will host next year’s Women’s Baseball World Cup group stage. It appears as though the games are scheduled to take place at the home of the Rockford Rivets of the Northwoods League, though I wonder if this influx of money and accelerated construction changes any of those plans. Regardless of where the games are played, the IWBC promises “community activations” at historic Beyer Stadium. For those of you in the Midwest who are unable to travel to the Northeast to see the WPBL inaugural season, many of the league’s stars will also be playing in the World Cup in Illinois from July 22nd to the 26th, 2026. The AAGPBL reunion is also that same week – be sure to mark your calendars.

• Even casual baseball fans are familiar with Steve Cohen’s massive net worth, but $2 million is nothing to sneeze at, and I’m excited to see the International Women’s Baseball Center secure more funding for what sounds like a really cool project. Hopefully, the donations keep coming in as the entire Maybelle Blair Park renovation will cost more than $25 million. This is purely speculation on my part, but assuming the WPBL is successful out of the gate and looks to expand to the rest of the country in the future, could we see a team in Rockford? I’m sure everyone involved would be on board and it sounds like they’ll have a pretty impressive facility soon. A WPBL team two hours from my house would be a dream.

• WPBL adviser Alex Hugo recently spoke with Kamila Hinkson at The Athletic about next steps for the new league. According to the article, the league plans to launch with at least four teams at minimum – a new development, as it’s been previously reported that number is six. There’s a chance the inaugural draft happens in early November instead of October. Hinkson also shares a bit more about player compensation: “$500 per game plus travel, accommodations, meals and a percentage of league sponsorship revenue.”

• Hugo says she is still reviewing the notes from last month’s league tryouts. It sounds like the talent evaluators are ranking all the players in preparation for the draft – which, I’m guessing, may eventually populate the prospect ranking webpage I mentioned in last week’s rundown. Whether this ranking will serve just as a tool for teams to use or literally act as the draft order, I’m not sure. More from Hugo:

There are some players that weren’t able to attend the tryout who gave us some video submissions or we have seen them play in a tournament, international play, stuff like that. We’re going through scouting reports and different notes to make sure that we order the draft correctly. That’s my mission, to make sure that the players are ordered based on talent, so that these teams are going to be solid.

• The interview features a few other nuggets I enjoyed, including why a decorated player like Alex Hugo isn’t in the draft pool herself, details on what they were looking for during the tryouts, why she likes the idea of a shorter season, and more. You can read Hinkson’s full article here1.

• Thanks in part to their involvement in the Banana Ball World Tour, future WPBL draftees Kelsie Whitmore and Ashton Lansdell are no stranger to playing in MLB stadiums. Yet the last few weeks have featured notable steps in their baseball journeys. Whitmore fulfilled a lifelong dream of pitching at Petco Park (while also collecting her first Banana Ball strikeout). Meanwhile Home Run Derby X, a rousing co-ed baseball event Lansdell has been involved with since the beginning, took place at an MLB stadium for the first time in its four year history.

• Lansdell also caught up with Michael Clair of MLB.com2 at the Kansas City HRDX event to talk about WPBL tryouts and meeting new players from all around the world.

• My favorite podcast I’ve listened to this week is the most recent episode of Women’s Baseball - The Inside Pitch. Host Amy McCann interviews Allie Bebbere and Molly Paddison, two Australian baseball players who traveled to the WPBL tryouts in Washington, D.C. and made it through to the draft pool. The entire hour is spent sharing each moment of Bebbere and Paddison’s trials experience. They discuss the decision to try out in person, the specific kinds of drills they were put through, making it to Nationals Park, and the impact of the experience once they returned home. It’s the longest podcast I’ve recommended in this space so far but it’s also one of the most fun and detailed accounts of the tryouts I’ve heard or read. Take a listen below:

Here are the potential rule changes mentioned in David K. Li’s great article last month:

A host of unorthodox rules are under consideration for the WPBL, including a two-hour time limit, a “golden at-bat,” limitless pinch runners, inning-by-inning score competitions, a home run contest to break ties, and outfield assists at home plate that also result in trail runners being wiped out.

Three of those ideas are straight out of Banana Ball, one is borrowed from the MLB All-Star Game, and the other two appear to be original proposals. It should be noted that this is likely not an exhaustive list of options on the table, but simply a handful that were mentioned in the article.

As I wrote last week, I’m all for innovation and I agree a little extra juice via fun rules will help draw in fans – but I also think it’s important that the WPBL be recognizable as a genuine baseball game. The league is helping build the pipeline for girls to keep playing baseball through high school and college by giving them a light at the end of the tunnel: the opportunity to play professionally. The pro game they aspire to should feel like the game they played growing up as much as possible.

Let’s break down these potential rule tweaks one by one:

Two-Hour Time Limit

Last month I was lucky enough to attend my first Savannah Bananas game. It was so much fun – honestly more fun than I was expecting. Banana Ball is constant stimulation in the best way, a runaway train of entertainment from first pitch until the final out.

Or until two hours pass, that is. After the timer expires, you can’t start a new inning and the score stands.

WPBL games will already be 7 innings. Do we really need a two-hour time limit like in Banana Ball? For context, I dug into the box scores from the latest Women’s Baseball World Cup to see how long those 7-inning games took1:

Tie games, the home team winning, and the mercy rule means not every game lasted exactly seven innings. On average, games took 2 hours and 10 minutes to complete. Each inning took 19.36 minutes making a full seven inning game last 2 hours and 15 minutes. That’s well within the ballpark of two hours and still an incredibly reasonable amount of time to spend watching a baseball game, in my opinion.

The Bananas created the two-hour clock well before Major League Baseball adopted the pitch clock, back when popular opinion said baseball was too long and too slow. The Firefighters-Bananas game I saw ended naturally before the clock expired. I have to admit the countdown timer you see in the photo above was a bit of a distraction for me. I already feel rushed and like I’m missing out when I get stuck in a long concessions line at a Milwaukee Brewers game; that anxiety spiked tenfold while watching the Bananas.

I’m sure a strict two-hour limit would make the WPBL an easier product to sell to broadcast partners. If that’s what helps get the league on the air more broadly, then by all means, go for it! Otherwise I don’t care for the idea, so long as the league adopts some sort of pace of play clock like we see in the Northwoods League or college baseball.

Golden At-Bat

I’ll let Bananas broadcaster Josh Talevski share the Golden Batter rule for the uninitiated:

This is one of the most popular Banana Ball innovations recently, even generating “a little buzz” at an MLB owners’ meeting last year. I doubt it ever happens in Major League Baseball, nor do I necessarily want it to – it feels a bit too different to add to the sport after more than a hundred years of box scores.

But for a brand new league trying to draw in fans like the WPBL? I think it’s perfect.

People become fans of sports teams in three ways, basically:

• Proximity. They follow the local team.

• Generational. Mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers pass down their fandom.

• Player-centric. Fans fall in love with a particular player, which deepens their connection to the player’s team and the sport at large.

My initial connection to Major League Baseball was generational, and then later proximity-based when I went to school in Milwaukee and moved to the Bay Area to work for the A’s.

The only new sport I’ve picked up since then is women’s basketball. The Caitlin Clark buzz exposed me to March Madness for the first time in 2024, where Angel Reese became my favorite player. My wife and I later went to our first WNBA game to see the Chicago Sky play the Minnesota Lynx. With the Sky eliminated, the Lynx became our default rooting interest in last year’s playoffs. I soon fell in love with Napheesa Collier’s game, which made the Lunar Owls an easy choice for my Unrivaled team.

Fast-forward to today. Phee and the Lynx are beginning their title run while the Sky sit at home amidst Angel Reese trade rumors. Now I’m left to wonder: is it just the allure of the postseason, or do the Lynx have a stronger hold on my heart than the Sky?

In short, my entire WNBA fandom has been player-driven. The money I spend on merchandise, the advertising revenue from watching games on TV, the cash from our ticket sales, the very fabric of my connection to the sport: it’s all because of Reese, Collier, Marina Mabrey, Courtney Williams, Allisha Gray, and everyone in between.

The Golden At-Bat rule elevates superstars. As Talevski said, it ensures the best hitter is at the plate in the most pivotal situations. The WPBL draft pool is full of fantastic players and fans just need an opportunity to get to know them. Think of the buzz if Mo’ne Davis hits a walk-off on Opening Day 2026 thanks to this crazy fun rule.

The headlines write themselves. I’m all for it.

Limitless Pinch Runners

We don’t have many specifics to go off of for this one. My best guess is this proposal allows managers to replace someone with a pinch runner any time they reach base, but when the inning turns over, the original player returns to their spot in the field/lineup.

So, how often do these ballplayers run? Using the aforementioned 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup2 as a barometer: collectively, the six finalists reached first base 347 times during the tournament (201 singles, 110 walks, 36 hit-by-pitches). Yes, you can certainly steal while standing on second or third, and no, we don’t know for sure if second base was open for the taking each of those 347 times.

Regardless, World Cup teams stole 44 bases during the tournament, or around 12.7% of the time. For contrast, using the same (admittedly fuzzy) math, MLB players reached first base 42,776 times in 2022 – the last season before the bases increased in size – and stole 2,468 bags, or a rate of 5.8%. The sample sizes are vastly different, but the women’s stolen base efficiency (44-for-60, or 73.3%) was essentially on par with the men (75.4%) in these two scenarios.

Running can be a big part of the women’s game. Whether that means coaches should be allowed to pinch-run with reckless abandon, I’m not so sure. If you’re letting teams sub in a faster runner all the time, why not go with limitless substitutions like in basketball? It would take away from the specialness of the Golden Batter, for one. I foresee a rule like this being confusing for fans and inadvertently penalizing well-rounded teams. Mark me down as “indifferent” on this one.

Inning-by-Inning Score Competitions

Like the two-hour clock, this was another rule I saw up close in Chicago last month with the Savannah Bananas. Essentially every inning is its own mini-competition: win the inning, get a point, and whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

This prevents one team going up 7-0 in the first inning for a lopsided, boring affair – in theory, the leading team would only be up 1 point to 0. It also presents the possibility for a “walk off” by the home team every single inning, which sounds fun at first, but starts to lose its luster before long.

Ultimately, I think this rule idea is just too different from fundamental baseball to have legs in the WPBL.

Home Run Contest Tiebreaker

My wife Stephanie and I have hosted a party for the MLB All-Star Game every year since 2014.

Most friends don’t stick around until the end of the game – it’s a Tuesday night, after all – but the few who remained this year got a special treat. Unbeknownst to us at the time, when the All-Star Game is tied after nine innings it goes to a “swing-off.”

Kyle Schwarber, one of my all-time favorite players, dominated the first ever HR contest tiebreaker this summer and earned ASG MVP honors. It will go down as one of my favorite all-star memories.

A similar tiebreaker is on the table for the WPBL.

If the league doesn’t adopt a two-hour cap, this would be an exciting way to keep games to a reasonable length. I like it more than the ghost runner rule, and I like it infinitely more than games ending in ties.

Returning to our Women’s Baseball World Cup example: teams hit 9 home runs in 844 at-bats last August, just a little over 1% of the time.

We don’t yet know the specifics of what ballparks WPBL games will be played in next year or what the offensive environment will be like. At last year’s World Cup, the fences weren’t quite as deep as they normally are for Thunder Bay Border Cats games.

If dingers are a typical part of a WPBL game rather than an excitingly rare happenstance, then I’m all in for tie games being decided by a swing-off. Future draftee Ashton Lansdell has been hitting bombs in Home Run Derby X for years now, after all. I would love to see her step up to the plate with a tie game on the line!

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But if homers will be as hard to come by as they were in the WBWC, there might need to be a different solution. Hitting off an opposing pitcher is certainly much different than hitting off your coach, and I’ll fully admit we did not get to see any batting practice when we saw those World Cup games so I could be off base here. It’s just something to consider.

Outfield Assists at Home Impact Trail Runners

One of my favorite plays in baseball is the runner tagging up from third on a fly ball.

Will they break for home? How strong is the outfielder’s arm? Will the catcher corral the ball? At the end of it, you’ve got a run or an out. The anticipation, the direct competition between two players’ skills – it really excites me.

Once again we don’t have a lot of details on this proposal, but it seems that if you’re out on a tag-up-from-third situation or rounding third-to-home on a double, every runner behind you on the bases is also out.

I like the idea of adding extra stakes to some of my favorite plays on the field, so long as there aren’t any unintended consequences of those plays becoming less frequent. Imagine the bases are loaded with no outs, for example. The batter hits a fly ball, not deep but probably deep enough to get the runner in. The call to send the runner home is borderline – are you really going to tag up and head home when there’s a chance you getting out ends the entire inning? The math probably says it’s not worth it.

It seems like there’s a possibility this rule makes players more risk-averse rather than adding exciting moments to the game. Consider me curious on this one.

Those are my thoughts on the possible new rules. To recap:

• Pro Golden Batter ✅

• Potentially pro HR tiebreakers 👍 and “super” OF assists 👍

• Indifferent on limitless pinch runners 🤷‍♀️, and

• Against the two hour limit ❌ and inning-by-inning scoring ❌.

More importantly, what are your thoughts? Drop a comment below!

• Of the dozen-plus news articles I’ve read covering the recent WPBL tryouts, this piece from David K. Li via NBC News is probably my favorite. I’m not sure how I missed it last week. It features great quotes, stories, and phenomenal photographs of a number of players not named Kelsie Whitmore or Mo’ne Davis (who are both awesome, of course, but we’ve seen a ton about them already).

• Within the copy are three tidbits I’d like to highlight in particular. For those like me who are wondering just how far they’ll have to travel to catch some WPBL action, Li reports games could be in “likely Hartford, Connecticut; Manchester, New Hampshire; and possibly a third city.” This is the first mention I’ve read of potentially playing games in three locations, and also the first time I’ve seen specific northeastern cities called out. So long as the numbers work out, the more the merrier, I say – whatever can expose the league to more potential fans.

• Li talked to WPBL co-founders Justine Siegal and Keith Stein about softball and the Athletes Unlimited Softball League. When I heard about Major League Baseball’s investment in AUSL earlier this summer, I’ll admit my first thought was disappointment that those dollars weren’t going to the WPBL. Siegal said there were no requests to MLB for support, and Stein downplays the implication of pro softball and pro baseball as rival products.

[With] no MLB involvement, Stein said the WPBL has more freedom to consider rule changes that could never get to first base in a legacy setting.

A host of unorthodox rules are under consideration for the WPBL, including a two-hour time limit, a “golden at-bat,” limitless pinch runners … Stein said: “I’d be shocked if there’s not more than one of those (possible rule changes used in 2026).”

• I abbreviated the excerpt above so be sure to check out Li’s article for the full lineup of potential rule changes. As I read the list it looks like a number of ideas come straight out of Banana Ball. On one hand, it makes sense: the Savannah Bananas are wildly popular and Stein is right about the need (and opportunity) to innovate. Don’t forget at least two Banana Ball stars – Whitmore and Ashton Lansdell – will be in the WPBL draft in October. On the other hand, part of the appeal of this league is seeing women play real, genuine baseball. I hope they strike a good balance and put a great product on the field for fans.

• A new page titled “Prospect Ranking” popped up on the official WPBL website last week. The page appears to still be under construction, but has space for player names, positions, demographic information, and a ranking system. Clicking on a player name brings you to a “draft picks” profile section with award history and social media handles. As you can see in the screenshot below, currently the only player on this list is pitcher Ayami Sato.

• This might seem like trivial “news” but it’s got me pretty excited. I’ve been itching to dive into the pool of draft eligible players! I want to see how many names I recognize from international women’s baseball tournaments might be in the new league. I’m curious to see the breakdown of hometown countries represented. What positions do these women play – how many catchers, how many pitchers are in the pool? I have so many questions. The tease of this new webpage leads me to believe we’ll be getting this information sooner rather than later, and hopefully well before the draft in October.

• When my wife and I traveled to watch the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup Finals, one of the players who stood out after seeing them up close was catcher Denae Benites. The excitement and enthusiasm with which she plays the game is infectious and so incredibly easy to root for. That made the latest episode of the SLIDE Youth Baseball & Softball podcast a must-listen for me. Young ballplayers Lilah “Brickwall” Br4tcher and Ashlynn Jolicouer talk to Benites about how she was personally recruited to the new league, her experience at the tryouts in D.C., and how it felt catching a bullpen session for the legendary Ayami Sato. They also ask Benites for suggestions on WPBL team names and host cities. Check it out below:

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Here’s what we know about those teams so far:

• There will be six of them.

• They will all play at one or two neutral sites somewhere in the Northeast.

• They will operate under a “single entity ownership model.”

Here’s what we don’t know about those teams:

• What they will be called.

During the WPBL press conference at Nationals Park, co-founder Keith Stein said team identities would be shared sometime in September. As we eagerly await the announcement, I thought some speculation on the future branding would be fun.

Two new women’s sports leagues launched earlier this year: the Unrivaled 3-on-3 basketball league in January and the Athletes Unlimited Softball League in June. The approach of these two leagues might offer clues to WPBL’s future team branding.

In 2025, Unrivaled and AUSL teams did not have specific city affiliations like MLB, WNBA, PWHL, etc. The six Unrivaled teams played at a beautiful custom-built facility and court in Miami, while all four AUSL teams traveled between different cities and fields gathering exposure in Illinois, Louisiana, Kansas, Texas, and Nebraska.

When a team has a permanent home base in a particular city, their branding can reflect some connection to that city. They can own their local history (however weird it may be) and leverage their brand identity to gain a following before a single pitch is thrown – “that’s my local team.”

When a team doesn’t have a permanent home base, it’s a little tougher. The WPBL will be in the same situation as Unrivaled and AUSL: cityless teams playing at neutral site(s). So how did those leagues handle their inaugural branding?

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Both leagues took the “single name” approach. The logos are colorful, albeit slightly generic. Pick whichever name calls to you, or see where your favorite player gets drafted, and you’re off to the races as a new fan.

Unrivaled incorporated the phrase “Basketball Club” onto the end of each of their team names, which I like. It lengthens the formal name of the team and gives it the tenor of something with a city affiliation even though it doesn’t have one. Perhaps WPBL could go with a “________ Baseball Club” approach?

There doesn’t seem to be any deeper meaning to Unrivaled team names besides “it sounds cool.” Athletes Unlimited, on the other hand, features a bit more intentionality with their team branding. The Talons “About” page discusses the speed of the peregrine falcon, the deliberate shape of their team crest, and the focus on “grabbing” victory each time they take the field.

Some are predicting (and hoping) the new league will simply adopt the old team names of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The Peaches, the Comets, the Blue Sox, these names are all well-known amongst baseball fans and movie fans alike and would play well in the press.

I just don’t think this is the approach the new league will take. They honor the past, of course, and the trailblazers who came before – the AAGPBL ran so WPBL could sprint and stick around for decades to come. Plus, the All-American Women’s Baseball Classic historically uses those retro names for their annual showcase. It feels to me like this new league will want to go in a new direction.

(That being said, one classic name I could see them reusing is the Peaches. AUSL features the Bandits, seemingly a reincarnation of the Chicago Bandits who won six National Pro Fastpitch championships in Rosemont. WPBL could bust out the “Peaches” moniker with the intention of moving them to Rockford in a few years.)

If the WPBL follows the structure of Unrivaled and AUSL, what might the new teams be called? Until the announcement comes, all we can do is wildly guess. For fun, I have a few ideas/predictions below.

🍃 Ivy

On May 17th, 1943, future players of the AAGPBL gathered at Wrigley Field to see if they would make the final cut for the new league. Naming one of the teams after Wrigley’s famous ivy would be a great and subtle nod to women’s baseball history.

⚾ Stitches

Most Unrivaled teams have a basketball somewhere in the logo. The Laces take things a step further with a basketball-themed team name, referencing the laces of basketball sneakers. Similarly, a WPBL team could be named after the stitches on a baseball.

9️⃣ Nine

Nine is a holy number in baseball. The jersey number 9 was worn by legends such as Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio. There are 9 defensive players on the field at a time. And of course, Title IX helped change the sports landscape for the better back in 1972.

💎 Rubies

I acknowledge this one’s a bit of a stretch. Not every team name might have a deeper meaning like the three above, but a gemstone as your team identity could lead to some cool branding opportunities. Plus, it kind of sounds like “ribbies.”

👑 Crown

Similar to Rubies, you could have a lot of fun branding a team named the “Crown.” Players on this team would be queens of the baseball diamond, prime to win a league championship or chase Triple Crown honors.

🥪 Submarines

Pitchers threw underhand in the early years of the AAPGBL before the league evolved into more traditional baseball like we know today. There’s a notable submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. Depending on where in the Northeast the inaugural season is played, perhaps there’s some punny connection to be made here.

Those are my ideas. Ivy/Stitches/Nine feel solid, but I’m not quite sold on Rubies/Crown/Submarines. What would you call the new teams? Drop it in the comments below!

News continues to trickle out following the historic Women’s Pro Baseball League tryouts last month. If you somehow missed the details and pictures, I highly recommend visiting the league website where they’ve done a great job sharing media coverage and pictures from the event.

Read on for more bits of recent news from the world of women’s pro baseball:

• Just how well did the tryouts spread the word about the new league? Rachel Axon via the Sports Business Journal has a nice infographic of the social media impact in her recent women’s sports newsletter. The league’s TikTok account gained 30,000 followers. Unique website views are up 300% month-over-month. Across four days of tryouts, Instagram views reached 1.1 million. (I feel like I was at least a thousand of those. 🤣) Hopefully this engagement momentum continues through the draft in October.

• Feeling lucky? The Hard Rock Casino in Rockford, Illinois just installed three custom slot machines themed for the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Abreanna Blose via the Freeport Journal-Standard reports “exclusive Rockford Peaches memorabilia” will soon be on sale at the casino as well. Honorary Chair of the WPBL Advisory Board Maybelle Blair was in attendance for the unveiling and won $300 after pulling the lever – how’s that for great press?

• Nick Wilson via the San Luis Obispo Tribune spoke with WPBL co-founder Keith Stein about game locations for the inaugural season. The league is prioritizing state-of-the-art player amenities when selecting a venue, with Stein telling Wilson the WPBL is “putting the players first.” Also nestled within Wilson’s article is the nugget that players will receive a “revenue cut” for participating, presumably in addition to their salary which is based on draft position.

• There’s a chance I missed it earlier, but the revenue cut piece is something I haven’t heard about the WPBL before. Stein’s comment about player facilities and revenue share remind me of the new Unrivaled 3x3 women’s basketball league which features league equity for players as well as revenue sharing. Unrivaled and the WPBL are in two very different situations, of course, but considering how successful (and fun!) Unrivaled’s inaugural season was, it’s great to see some similarities.

• Wilson’s article in the Tribune also highlights C.J. Silas, a baseball announcer and ESPN radio host who played a key role in the tryouts. She was emcee for the opening night event, moderator for the press conference, and also served as announcer for both exhibition games. I bring up Silas because she recently released a fantastic episode of her podcast recounting the weekend. It’s a great peek behind the curtain for the tryouts and an incredibly moving account of her experience and sense of belonging. The episode is 37 minutes long and well-worth a listen.

• Ayami Sato’s time with the Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Club has come to an end (for this season, at least). The future WPBL star became the first woman to play pro baseball in Canada earlier this summer. The Maple Leafs made the Intercounty Baseball League playoffs this year but lost to the Barrie Baycats in the first round. Sato did not appear in any postseason games despite making the roster, presumably because much of the first round took place during WPBL tryouts. Sato finished her first IBL season with a 1-0 record, 9 strikeouts, and a 14.04 ERA in 16.2 innings (click here for full stats).

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A post shared by @sato_18

• All-Star voting for the Banana Ball World Tour is under way and two future WPBL draftees are on the ballot. US Women’s National Team leadoff batter Ashton Lansdell is eligible as an infielder and WPBL face Kelsie Whitmore is on the pitchers list. I could go into their stats here, but stats don’t really matter in Banana Ball, do they? Those games are about fun, vibes, and entertainment, and these two women have my vote. Ballots close on September 8th at 5pm EST and the All-Star Game will be played in late October.

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A post shared by @ashtonlansdell

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A post shared by @wpbl_official

Getting the “@wpbl_official is live” notification that morning was a welcome surprise. I didn’t make the trip to D.C. to watch the tryouts and there was no opportunity to tune in via broadcast or streaming, so I spent much of the weekend refreshing Instagram to follow along. The league and players in attendance did a nice job sharing pictures of the event, but being able to watch the full press conference on Instagram was an unexpected treat.

Those on the panel discussed the historic nature of the weekend and the league shared a few tidbits for the immediate future of the WPBL. Below I’ve transcribed the five quotes that most stood out to me.

1. Keith Stein, Co-Founder:

We have the two most famous women in the world to use a glove and play with a ball and a bat. The two most famous women on the planet.

So, big deal for us. We are honored. Besides them, we are loaded with women superstars.

Stein, of course, was referring to Kelsie Whitmore and Mo’ne Davis.

If there was any question about how the WPBL was going to market its product, Stein’s emphatic praise of these two players put it to bed.

Whitmore has made history at seemingly every stop of her baseball career. She was introduced to many baseball fans in 2022 when she became the first woman to play for an MLB Partner League, suiting up for the Staten Island FerryHawks. Davis is a bit of a throwback who rose to fame in 2014 when she pitched a shutout in the Little League World Series and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

These two women are going to be the face of the league. (I love the picture below of Kelsie literally posing with her own likeness at the tryouts.) The WPBL will need to draw in diehards and casual fans alike to thrive. Stein is correct that the fame of Whitmore and Davis is most likely to succeed in that regard so it’s a great sign to see them front and center.

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A post shared by @kelsie_whitmore

The best part? There are so many exciting players and trailblazers beyond Whitmore and Davis once the fans are drawn in. Other personal favorites of mine who attended the tryouts include:

• Ayami Sato, Toronto Maple Leafs pitcher and the first woman to play pro baseball in Canada

• Ashton Lansdell, Ole Miss softball star and Bananaball web-gem generating Party Animal

• Val Perez, Firefighters head coach, US Women’s National team medalist, and the profile pic for this Substack

I could go on. Alli Schroder, Denae Benites, Amanda Gianelloni… but that feels like the topic for a future blog post instead.

2. Kelsie Whitmore:

Competing with men, I had to make the transition of throwing a lot more off-speed. I ended up adding a lot more different pitches, mixing up my timing, different holds, quick pitches, all that different stuff.

… Being here, I could be that conventional pitcher I grew up being. I want to throw 70% fastballs rather than the flip side of 70% off-speed.

There’s a lot more to this quote you can see in the full video that I cut out for brevity. But I thought it was really interesting to hear Whitmore talk about how she’s excited to just be herself in the WPBL, both on and off the field.

It’s so cool to see Whitmore compete in the men’s game on the Oakland Ballers or Savannah Bananas. Don’t get me wrong – I still hope we get our real-life Pitch moment of a woman in MLB someday. Until that happens, I’m pumped for Whitmore to have the opportunity to just be herself and carve up the competition more frequently than in sporadic international women’s competitions.

3. Kelsie Whitmore:

The word integration, that is huge. Yesterday someone spoke about it and was like, “How does it feel to be in a women’s professional baseball integrated league?”

… I didn’t realize when Maybelle [Blair] was playing, there was only a certain color that can play with her, right? And that’s huge, and I love it. I love that we’re having so many backgrounds, cultures, girls from other countries. That’s how it should be. And it gives me chills, honestly.

Hearing Whitmore say this gave me chills, too.

Integration was a topic of conversation in the 2022 Amazon Prime series A League of Their Own, but the lack of color in the AAGPBL is a fact that unfortunately didn’t stick in my brain. When you pull back and examine the “Face of WPBL” conversation above and realize that this entire league will be marketed on the backs of two women of color, that’s incredible to see.

It wasn’t just American players who attended tryouts last week. Press conference moderator C.J. Silas said ten countries were represented amongst the 600 players who participated in tryouts. Ten countries! I truly wonder what percent of the player pool hails from Japan, the country that has dominated international women’s baseball competitions for many, many years.

The league is doing their best to make this an international affair. According to their FAQ page, they’ll be hiring translators and sponsoring visas for those who need them, plus offering housing for all players.

The inaugural season will be just seven weeks long. I wish it was longer, but hopefully the focused schedule is easier on logistics for some of these high-quality international players. I want to see the best of the best in the entire world play in this league with the highest level of competition possible.

4. Keith Stein:

We will be announcing our teams within the next four weeks.

… That will precede our draft, which is taking place in October. That will be the dispersal draft. All the great players here today will comprise our teams.

A huge shout-out to the reporter who asked this question. These are the logistics I need to hear!

It’s been reported that the league’s inaugural season will feature six teams playing at one or two locations primarily in the Northeast. Teams will be approximately 15 players deep. Now we know when these team announcements are coming.

Fingers crossed that they decide to stream the dispersal draft, because I need to see that. A list of draft-eligible players would be fun to dive into as well.

5. Justine Siegal, Co-Founder:

I don’t have to stand there and wonder what’s next, because I know what’s coming.

What's coming is a women's pro baseball league that’s going to be here from now to forever. My grandchild's going to play in this league and I'm just so grateful. The future is very, very bright.

Hearing Justine speak throughout the weekend, watching videos of her peers talk about her and all the years of work she has put in to get here… it’s truly inspirational.

It’s amazing to see her and the league reach this moment. People love sports because they love watching their favorite players, and this past weekend was the first opportunity we had to see the potential player pool take the field. Women hitting and pitching in t-shirts adorned with the WPBL logo makes this whole thing feel more tangible than it ever has, and that’s part of the reason I’m so excited.

There are still more steps to go before Opening Day 2026 (a national media rights deal would be a huge step), but I love hearing Siegal talk about longevity. Baseball is a sport steeped in legacy, in record holders, in numbers and lore. Major League Baseball’s longevity is part of what makes it interesting.

I can’t go back in time and watch the Knickerbockers’ first game. But I can go see the first hit, the first strikeout, the first win in WPBL history next May. The idea of getting in on the ground floor as a fan of a brand new league and being able to follow it for years to come is thrilling.

Thanks for reading. What were your favorite quotes from the press conference? What question do you wish had been asked? Drop a comment below!

You can (and should) watch the full presser from Nationals Park by clicking here.

As blog post ideas bounce around in my head, I thought it would be prudent to introduce myself and give potential readers a sense of who is behind the keyboard.

My name is Justin Jabs. My day job is a data analyst at a local non-profit. Much of the rest of my waking hours are spent thinking about baseball.

How I Became a Baseball Fan

I played a bit of youth baseball as a kid (catcher/left field), but I became a deep fan of the game when I was 15 years old.

My late grandfather passed down his Chicago Cubs fandom to me, but my interest was surface level. Casual. I started working at a scout camp in the summer of 2007 and my coworker was a legit Brewers fan who loved giving me crap about not knowing many Cubs players’ names.

I returned home with renewed focus to learn more about baseball. (That’ll show him.) One of the first ballgames I watched after camp featured this incredible catch in the ivy by Cubs outfielder Sam Fuld. Finally, I had my first favorite player and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Prior to joining the non-profit sector, I worked at a brewery here in Milwaukee. Prior to that, though, I spent five seasons in the business side of front offices around Major League Baseball.

For a guy whose early baseball fandom was spent booing Ryan Braun, it’s a bit ironic that my first real job out of college was selling season and group ticket packages for the Milwaukee Brewers. Yet I genuinely fell in love with the team during my time with the Crew. Driving to Miller Park for work every day, connecting with fans, and watching Eric Thames rip dingers (for free!) never got old.

My role in Milwaukee was entry-level, so I spent the summer of 2017 interviewing for account executive jobs around the league. I chatted with the Royals, the Mets, and the Padres, but in the end it was the Oakland Athletics who wanted me. A few months after my wife Stephanie and I got married, we packed up our lives and embarked on what we called our “California Adventure.”

Although we didn’t know anyone in the Bay Area, many of my new coworkers were in the same boat as the A’s built out a brand-new group sales department. The 2018 and 2019 season featured some of my life’s fondest memories both inside and outside of the ballpark. I got to experience playoff baseball as an employee for the first time alongside new friends I’ll remember for the rest of my days.

Like many in the industry, the COVID-19 pandemic took my dream job away. With no baseball games to play I was furloughed and eventually let go.

We ended up moving back to Milwaukee to be closer to friends and family – a genuinely great silver lining I am thankful for to this day. But honestly, it took a few seasons to reignite my baseball passion. We still love going to games (24 ballparks and counting!) and cheering on our favorite players.

Now when people ask me for my favorite team, I say I’m more of a general baseball fan. It’s an amalgamation of Cubs, A’s, Brewers, and fantasy baseball-fueled fandom, cheering on whatever t-shirt I pull out of my closet that day.

My Introduction to Women’s Baseball

But this blog isn’t about Shōta Imanaga, Jacob Wilson, or William Contreras. It’s about players like Ayami Sato, Valerie Perez, and Denae Benites.

My first exposure to high-level women’s baseball came in August 2023. Stephanie and I were preparing to attend a Kenosha Kingfish game at Historic Simmons Field, former home of the Kenosha Comets in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. We caught wind that the US Women’s National Team would be playing a scrimmage and signing autographs that afternoon before the Kingfish game in preparation for the Women’s Baseball World Cup qualifiers.

The pregame action was hands-down the best part of the day. It was so cool seeing two teams of women competing head-to-head on the field. The entire national team signed a bat for us – they were so kind and generous with their time. It didn’t hurt that we got to meet a few AAGPBL alumni and actors from A League of Their Own (one of my all-time favorite movies) as well.

Stephanie and I had such a great time we decided to travel to Canada in August 2024 to watch the Women’s Baseball World Cup finals. How often do you get the opportunity to witness the peak of an international competition like that? The United States hadn’t won since 2006 and history was on the line. Although our Team USA favorites finished with the silver medal, it was such an awesome experience being in that environment and continuing to learn about the women’s game.

Fast-forward to August 2025. It’s been months since the Women’s Pro Baseball League launch announcement, but my hype has reached new heights as prospective players finally took the field for tryouts last weekend. I spent all four days glued to Instagram to catch glimpses of the action, feeling some massive FOMO that we didn’t make the trip to Nationals Park. Thankfully, we’re already planning to attend the inaugural WPBL Opening Day next May.

About the Women’s Pro Baseball Fan Blog

So, I don’t actually spend all of my free time thinking about baseball. I enjoy playing board games and video games, reading, watching movies, and I’ve always been interested in writing.

When I was younger I’d write short stories and chunks of novellas that would never see completion. I experimented with baseball blogging (RIP Baseblog) in college and studied journalism. I even spent some time as the Editor-in-Chief of the UWM Post.

I’ve wanted to get back into writing lately but inspiration for my next (first?) great fiction project has proven elusive. Meanwhile, I find myself telling anyone who will listen about the new women’s baseball league on the horizon. This Substack seems like a happy marriage of those two impulses and so the unofficial Women’s Pro Baseball Fan Blog was born.

What This Substack is Not

Before we get to my plans and goals for this project, let’s first talk about what this blog is not.

I am in no way affiliated or endorsed by the WPBL. This is an unofficial blog. I’m simply a future fan who is interested in writing about the league. Although it would be cool to talk to players or officials some day, I am not trying to represent myself as a journalist with breaking news. (Although I will be tapping into those old media student lessons to ensure everything I’m sharing is fairly communicated and well-cited.)

Unless this blows up beyond my wildest dreams to the point where I could quit my day job, I do not have any plans to turn on paid subscriptions for this Substack1. This is simply an outlet for my writing and baseball obsession, and I hope everyone who reads it enjoys it.

What I Hope this Substack Will Be

That doesn’t mean I only want to talk to myself. These are exciting times with a new baseball league on the horizon! I want to help spread the word of what’s coming, and hopefully be a way to connect fans like me with information they are interested in. I feel like there’s a space and hopefully a demand for fans to talk about the game.

This blog will be an area for my musings and opinions on professional women’s baseball. I want to journal about my experience attending women’s baseball games and interacting with players. If we get access to league stats, I’d like to flex my data muscles and do some deeper analysis. I want to talk about merch, about memorabilia, about fun stories, about wins and losses and records in the making.

And although original reporting is unlikely, I’d like to help curate league news and coverage from media outlets to keep myself and others informed. I am a longtime reader of the Cubs blog Bleacher Nation and have long found their curation efforts valuable in staying connected to the game.

I make no promises to myself about the frequency of posting. Maybe weekly, maybe more often, probably less. I promise that whatever hits your inbox will be something I feel is worth sharing. If you’re interested in the WPBL and want to join me for the ride, please subscribe and get in touch.

Thanks, and happy reading!
- Justin

There’s a new league joining the baseball landscape in 2026: the Women’s Pro Baseball League, or WPBL.

If you’ve never heard of the league before, you’ve come to the right place. This is my unofficial Women’s Pro Baseball Fan Blog and this post is an initial reference guide of everything we know about the new league so far. Please chime in with a comment if there’s a specific question you don’t see answered here.

What is the WPBL?

The Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) is an upcoming baseball league for women launching in May 2026. During the inaugural season, the league will feature four to six teams of approximately 15 players with games played at one or two sites somewhere in the Northeastern United States.

Players will compete using aluminum bats across a seven-week season. From the League FAQ page: “4 weeks of regular season play, 1 week of all-star competition, and 2 weeks of playoffs. Games will be played from Thursday to Sunday with each team playing 2 games per week.”

WPBL players will be paid on a salary scale according to their position in the inaugural draft. They will receive housing during the season, plus translators and sponsored visas, if applicable.

Who will play in the league?

Over 600 women from 10 countries participated in the WPBL tryouts in Washington, D.C. in August 2025. Across four days of practice, the player pool was narrowed down to ~120 eligible for the inaugural draft in October 2025.

The tryouts featured players such as Kelsey Whitmore and Mo’ne Davis, plus a number of names from recent international women’s baseball tournaments. Alanis Thames from the Associated Press has a great article detailing some of the standout draft hopefuls here.

Why do we need a women’s baseball league? Isn’t there a new softball league out there?

Frankly, softball and baseball are different games! That’s like saying we don’t need 5 on 5 basketball because 3 on 3 exists. Some athletes and spectators prefer softball, others prefer baseball. The existence of the Women’s Pro Baseball League provides a pathway for girls and women to continue to play baseball if they so choose, instead of being siloed into softball.

Plus, baseball is awesome. We could always use more baseball.

This all sounds really cool. How can I stay up to date with the league?

I’d bookmark the official WPBL website on your favorite browser (https://www.womensprobaseballleague.com/) and follow the league on your preferred social media site (I’m particularly fond of their Instagram page.)

Then, be sure to click the button below to subscribe to my WPBL newsletter. And don’t forget to tell your friends!

Subscribe now

Thanks for reading,
- Justin