Professional Baseball

As ideas go, this one’s a home run. The Women’s Pro Baseball League announced its impending launch this week – and once it’s up and running, it will be the first and only professional women’s baseball league in America. Expected to debut in summer 2026, the league will consist of six teams that will predominantly play in the northeast, according to a press release. League co-founder Justine Siegal is no stranger to making history. She became the first woman to coach a professional men’s baseball team, the Massachusetts’ Brockton Rox, in 2009. Then, in 2011, she became the first woman to throw batting practice for the Cleveland Guardians – all before becoming the first female coach in Major League Baseball history in 2015. “The Women's Pro Baseball League is here for all the girls and women who dream of a place to showcase their talents and play the game they love,” Siegal said in the press release. “We have been waiting over 70 years for a professional baseball league we can call our own. Our time is now." Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato, who is regarded as the best female pitcher in the world, will serve as a special advisor to the new league, alongside Cito Gaston, the first Black baseball manager to win a World Series title, which he did with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992. The league marks the latest of several recent strides made toward progress for women in professional baseball. Research shows that, in 2023, 43 women held coaching roles in both the major and minor leagues, up from 33 in the previous year. And according to Statista, women made up about 30% of staff working in MLB's central office last year. It will take more than that, though, to right this particular ship. Throughout history, women and girls have been routinely excluded from participating in baseball, wrestling and other sports due to sexism, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. Though the passage of Title IX in 1972 helped ensure sports opportunities for female students by prohibiting sex discrimination in school-based programs, professional and other non-scholastic chances to participate have remained elusive for women. In an effort to make baseball more inclusive, Siegal founded Baseball for All, a nonprofit that provides opportunities for girls to play, coach and take charge, back in 1998. It’s an effort in progress, though – while more than 100,000 girls play youth baseball, only 1,000 continue to play once they reach high school, Baseball for All finds. Which makes this new league a significant continued expansion of Siegal’s mission – and she is “so excited” to get up and running, she says. “It is a dream come true for all the girls and women who play America's Pastime.”

Professional Baseball

A League of Their Own: Women’s Professional Baseball League Set to Launch

The Story Exchange

Professional Baseball

A League of Their Own: Women’s Professional Baseball League Set to Launch

The Story Exchange

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