After months of waiting, it finally happened: just a few short weeks ago my wife Stephanie and I were fortunate enough to attend the first ever game of the Women’s Professional Baseball League, a 10-8 comeback victory for our Los Angeles Queens over the New York Heights. It was a crazy, chaotic, but ultimately awesome day.
As you probably noticed, I haven’t written much in this space since the WPBL Draft last November. Part of that is due to a lack of details and communication from the league in the intervening months (hard to get truly hyped about something when you don’t know if, how, or when you’ll get to experience it), and part of that is because 2026 has been a busy one for the Jabs clan – we’ve been selling and buying our house, checking a few more MLB ballparks off our bucket list, and anticipating the arrival of our first child later this year.
So while priorities have shifted a bit, I couldn’t let WPBL Opening Day pass by without sharing a bit about our experience. In the last few weeks I found myself writing an overly-detailed journal about the day but the words weren’t landing quite right; instead, I’ve opted to talk about the game by sharing some pictures I took. Hopefully you can live a little vicariously through us if you weren’t able to attend in person.
Enjoy.
With a highly-anticipated Mo’ne Davis bobblehead giveaway on deck alongside conflicting information from the league on what time gates would actually open, Stephanie and I showed up three hours before the originally scheduled game time to wait in a wet, rainy line.
Behind us, a woman and her daughter were being interviewed by USA Today. Heights pitcher Jacqui Reynolds came out in full uniform to take pictures with eager fans. As they waited, many people took selfies with the stadium in the background. The vibes were good.
With our new bobbleheads in hand, I was excited to see a number of San Francisco Firebells and Boston Hunters players spending their off-day roaming the concourse and engaging with fans. Amanda Gianelloni was kind enough to sign a ball for us. It was great to meet her, and super cool to secure a momento from the first player to join the WPBL. I wished her luck and she asked if we were coming to Sunday’s game – unfortunately not, we had to drive back to Wisconsin in the morning. She told us to check it out on streaming and to follow along on social… a true ambassador of the league!
The line for merch was looong. We queued up right after talking to Gianelloni and we still waited two hours for the opportunity to buy what turned out to be just two items apiece. (The limit makes sense, but it was a little disappointing to have to retool our purchase plan on the fly after waiting for that long.) We each picked up a cream Opening Weekend t-shirt, and Stephanie grabbed a black Inaugural Season shirt while I opted for the Official Commemorative Ticket. We’ll have to wait for an online restock to rep the Queens, but that’s alright.
I did a few laps around the stadium as Stephanie kept our place in the merch line. Honestly, I was impressed with the signage and WPBL branding throughout Robin Roberts Stadium. My previous experience at professional women’s sporting events has mainly been through Chicago Sky games. At Wintrust Arena, they throw a few Kamilla Cardoso banners over the men’s DePaul signage and call it a day.
Save for the scoreboard in center field (which is understandably hard to transform), everywhere I looked at the ballpark made me feel like it was the WPBL’s permanent home. There were Inaugural Season banners inside and out, pictures of the players and team namesakes, heck, even the concessions menu was in the font and color I have come to associate with the new league. Good stuff.
I spotted Commissioner Justine Siegel at one point during my walks around the concourse. I tried to hang around to see if I could get her to sign my second and final baseball, but she was chatting with some BFA players and then walked away swiftly. Not the place or time. A few moments later, Hunters 1B Sabrina Robinson passed me on the concourse and I was able to connect with her. Back when I was writing more often, Sabrina was always helpful sharing her perspective or giving a fun quote. It was really awesome to meet her in person and get her signature.
It’s been ten or fifteen years since I chased MLB player autographs (and even those situations were limited) but bumping into WPBL players down in the Springfield has unlocked this childlike excitement in me again. If we make it back down for another game I’ll be bringing some more baseballs just in case the opportunity presents itself. Especially on a rainy day when every fan in attendance spent so much time waiting around for the game to start, it was very heartwarming watching these players take the time to engage with fans for pictures, autographs, or high-fives – especially all those little girls who look up to them so dearly.
I know it was rough watching the rain delay on TV, but I’m thankful it gave us the opportunity to grab merch, pick up a corndog, and get to our seats before the opening ceremonies. First pitch was the priority – no way in hell we were missing that – but I wanted to see the kickoff as well. Despite a smoke machine blasting everyone behind home plate every ten seconds for no apparent reason, once the ceremonies got going they were quite enjoyable. The multi-generational nature of this moment was quite touching.
At long last, it was time to play ball. We missed the Women’s Baseball World Cup group stage last month so this was our first opportunity to see women on the field since our trip to Thunder Bay for the 2024 Gold Medal game.
The top of the first inning had me a little nervous, to be honest. The zone seemed tight and the Queens were taking a lot of pitches. When they swung, there wasn’t a lot of hard contact. The game kept pausing to set aside items to be authenticated and auctioned off later. Everyone had waited so long for this moment, and every bit of major coverage leading up to the game only talked about the historic nature of the event – not what we might expect from the product on the field. A fear flashed across my brain: what if, after all this time, the entertainment value of the WPBL left something to be desired?
Maggie Foxx quelled those fears with one swing, driving in the first runs in WPBL history. Everyone cheered.
The game picked up from there and continued to deliver. Although I would have loved to see Ayami Sato dominate in the bottom of the first, it was probably for the best that the offense kept rolling to give the crowd something to latch on to. It was so fun to hear everyone cheering for everything that was happening on the field, regardless of burgeoning team allegiances.
For the first inning, Stephanie and I had the entire third row behind home plate to ourselves. Weeks prior we somehow bought our tickets before they formally went on sale. (The league announced the date of the sale but not the time, and I happened to check the website and complete a purchase about 45 minutes before the official email went out.) I’m not sure if we accidentally bought some VIP section before it was reserved or what, because by the second inning some people who were just on the field for opening ceremonies had made their way to the seats around us.
I worked for the Oakland A’s in the late 2010s, so it was a crazy and surprising happenstance to be sitting next to Dave Stewart and Tony LaRussa, two guys from their last World Series Championship, watching Mo’ne Davis take an at-bat. Sabrina Robinson came and sat to our left shortly thereafter (Sabrina, if you’re reading this, my wife was very complimentary about your coordinating nail colors) and by the end of the game we realized Queens manager Eric Young Sr.’s family was right behind us.
Most of my pictures are from the less rainy parts of the game. The conditions got worse as the night went on which impacted the play on the field. If it wasn’t the first game ever, I feel like it was one that should have been called for weather. But the crowd maintained the energy (especially after Denae Benites’ first homer in league history) which kept us going. Team-specific chants started to develop (“Heights Heights Heights! … All Hail the Queens!”) which was a lot of fun. It was certainly the best crowd outside of an MLB park I’ve ever been a part of.
We were exhausted and soaked by the final out but it was all worth it.
One of my favorite parts of the game was starting to develop some new favorite players. I had no clue who Maggie Foxx was before I stepped into Robin Roberts Stadium that day, but watching her drive in runs and then strike some gals out a few innings later immediately put her on my radar.
I’m looking forward to finding even more new favorites as the season goes on… just from the dry comforts of my living room. 🤣
Future of WPBLfan.com
As mentioned above, I haven’t been writing a lot lately and that likely won’t change anytime soon as life continues to evolve. It is nice knowing I have a place to put my thoughts the next time I get inspired, though. The www.wpblfan.com domain expires next month, but you can visit www.wpblfan.substack.com if you’d like to keep up with my random fandom musings in the future. Better yet, just click the subscribe button below to have everything sent right to your inbox. (I likely won’t be sharing future posts on Instagram either, FYI – I took a nice long break over the winter and it was a big life improvement. Clicking the button below is the best way to keep up to date, if that is of interest.)
I’d also like to shout out a few of my favorite WPBL blogs/sites/etc lately. (There are a lot more of them than there were a year ago, which is really awesome to see.) Check ‘em out:
Kiri Oler at Fangraphs has been posting weekly roundups of WPBL action, complete with gifs, real baseball talk, fair critique, and fun facts. If you only read one thing a week it should be Kiri’s recap.
Mary’s blog is still one of my favorites and the coverage has only intensified now that the season is actually here. Please subscribe if you haven’t already.
The WPBL hub at SportyDolphin is the best statistical resource for the new league out there. There have been a ton of great updates (seemingly daily) and it keeps getting better.
Social media = bad. Discord = good.1 I’ve enjoyed my time in the WPBL Clubhouse server so far. It is full of welcoming, fun, and smart women’s baseball fans and can perfectly scratch the itch to chat about the new league. Click here to join the server.
Until next time… Go Queens!
To those saying technically Discord is social media: hush.
Solid write-up, Justin!!!
I was hoping to go to a game last week in person--it just didn't work out. This piece made me feel like I was there anyway. :)
If you have time, I would love to hear your thoughts about the streaming content...personally I am not the biggest fan...but I know it's better than nothing. :)