Women’s Baseball Is Back: 5 Moments From the WPBL’s First Season

I grew up in New England, known by those who live there as Red Sox Nation. Baseball marked the passing of the seasons, which unfolded with the slow drama of the sport. Spring meant opening day jitters, and long summer nights stretched with the highs of extra innings and late bedtime. The crisp fall air brought the World Series hum and winter was for trade speculations and Florida training camps. Red Sox radio was on during dinner, and I’d learned to keep a pitch by pitch scorecard by the time I was about 8. I spent hours of my young girlhood feeling the satisfying thunk of a baseball sink into the webbing of my glove. But when it was time for me to sign up for a team, there were shorter pants, jerseys with fewer buttons (what is with that), and a huge yellow ball. Baseball wasn’t for girls: that’s what softball was for!

But while softball has a rich history and electric presence in the United States, they are not the same sport. There are thousands of girls and women with stories just like mine. Upwards of 40% of fans who watched or attended MLB games in 2024 were women. With the MLB boasting more than 170 million fans in the US alone, that is upwards of 68 million women and girls who are fans of baseball. Not softball, baseball. Girls who grew up loving a game they would never get to see women play at the professional level, or dream of playing themselves. Title IX lawsuits have eventually forced baseball leagues (from Little League to the Big Leagues) to allow women to take part, but the reality has been that if a woman wants real playing time or a scholarship, softball has been the path forward.

Until now.

Earlier this year, the Women’s Pro Baseball League changed from dream to reality, and became the US's first women’s baseball league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (immortalized in A League of Their Own) folded in 1954. This is the first time that young girls today can look up and see players who look like them, and not just girls in the United States either. With a clear focus on attracting international talent, the league has provided interpretation services and visas to help attract the biggest names in the game. The league features 4 clubs: the Los Angeles Queens, San Francisco Firebells, New York Heights and Boston Hunters, and has now finished their inaugural 7 week season. The season ends with a best-of-3 semi-finals and a best-of-5 championship series that kicked off on September 17th.

As we revel in the postseason pressure, we’re taking a moment to look back on some of our favorite WPBL moments so far:

1. Everything Maybelle Blair

It would be impossible to write this list without talking about Maybelle Blair. Maybelle was a pioneering pitcher in the AAGPBL, and will be 100 years young in January. Rocking wide glasses and big jackets, she still has the swagger of a ball player. The league named her the Honorary Chair of the WPBL Advisory Board, and she threw out the first pitch to Kelsie Whitmore on opening day. However, I don’t think even Maybelle could have dreamed up meeting herself in mascot form. The WPBL official mascot is Maybelle herself, glasses and all. It’s a great reminder that this league has been built on the shoulders of the women who played baseball before, and a promise for the next 100 years.

2. Sarah Edwards Launching the League’s First Grand Slam

This whole season has been one of historic firsts, but Sarah Edwards’ long ball was one of the most special. For the baseball uninitiated, a grand slam is when a player hits a home run with runners on all three bases, thereby scoring her team 4 runs. Sarah worked Hunters’ pitcher Alli Schroder to a 3-1 count before sending the ball deep past the right field wall, giving the LA Queens a lead they would maintain to win the game. A Parity athlete (wooo hooo!), Sarah isn’t new to breaking baseball’s barriers. Back in 2023, she became the first female coach in the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization as a hitting development coach for their team in the Florida Complex League. We can’t wait to watch Sarah continue to crush it, literally.

3. A’ja Wilson Signature Shoe Plays Ball

We love a sports girls supporting sports girls moment, and Denae Benites of the NY Heights & Ashton Lansdell of the LA Queens gave us the sports girl crossover we didn’t know we needed. In partnership with Custom Cleats, Denae and Ashton both modified their A’Twos into cleats ready for the dirt. A’ja Wilson, 4 time WNBA MVP, is the epitome of dominance and greatness in women’s sports right now. Wearing her shoe on gameday in baseball shows fans and investors alike that women’s baseball isn’t just a trend: these women mean business. Check out Denae’s custom cleats here and Ashton’s here.

4. A Hot and Heavy MVP Race

As it turns out, Denae Benites is not only a baseball fashion icon, she’s also an incredible player. Denae finished the regular season leading the league in hits, steals and batting average for players who played all 15 games. She also tied for the league lead in homers, and only had two errors throughout the whole season. Her main opponent for the coveted MVP title? Number 1 pick of the draft, Firebells’ Kelsie Whitmore. Whitmore tied Benites with 11 home runs, and her red hot right arm has helped San Francisco claim the number one spot in the standings. Dark horses for the race? You can’t go wrong with Queens’ Jamie Mackay, who is an incredible power hitter as well as a catcher and pitcher. She’s sitting at 5 home runs and could help her case by pitching well against Benites and Whitmore. Or you could pick Firebell’s Alexia Jorge, who has one of the highest slugging percentages in the league, and is climbing up the RBI race ladder. In our eyes, everyone deserves a trophy.

5. Britt Apgar & the Power of the Internet

Britt Apgar grew up just like me: a girl who loved to feel the thunk of the baseball in the webbing of her glove. Unlike me, Britt was born without one arm past her elbow. Doctors removed bones from her foot and leg to construct a radius, ulna, and wrist joint. The result was what she lovingly refers to as her “nub.” Her parents taught her to never let her disability limit her, and it hasn’t. She learned how to pitch with her glove tucked under her arm, and hit with her nub hand resting on the bat. But as she started to hit higher speed pitches, the nub struggled to keep up. One particularly fast pitch left the nub torn open and bleeding, which was how “protect the nub” was born. Britt reached out to her community online, asking if anyone had any ideas or resources for how to keep playing the game she loves while protecting her nub. It exploded. Protect the nub is an ongoing project as Britt tries prototypes, prosthetics and different approaches. In the meantime, we love that she is getting her flowers at events like St. Louis Cardinals’ Pride Disability Night.

What did we miss? We’d love to hear from you about how you are enjoying and experiencing this first season of the WPBL! As a reminder, the semi finals kick off on September 10th, and the finals begin a week later, on September 17th. Head here to figure out how to watch, or better yet, head to Springfield, Illinois to catch the action liiiiive. I know where I will be: curled up on the couch with my daughter, tuned in and showing her how to fill out a score card.