American professional baseball welcomed women back to the field this August for the first time in over 70 years. The Women’s Pro Baseball League 2026 launched its inaugural season on August 1 at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, with four teams, 60 players from 11 countries, sold-out stands, fans who had driven hundreds of miles to be there, and one name on every ticket stub: Mo’ne Davis. What happened on that rainy Saturday afternoon in Springfield was more than a first game. It was the official return of women’s professional baseball to the United States, a sport that had been absent from American life since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League folded in 1954. Here is everything you need to know about how it started, who is playing, and why this league matters.
72 Years in the Making: Why This League Exists Now
Women have been playing baseball in America since at least the 1860s. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which the movie A League of Their Own was based on, operated from 1943 to 1954, drawing hundreds of thousands of fans during World War II and the years that followed before folding when the men’s leagues returned to full strength after the war.
For the seven decades since, women who wanted to play professional baseball had almost no options in the United States. Some played internationally, in Japan’s women’s baseball leagues or on national teams, but domestic professional baseball remained entirely closed to women. The Women’s Pro Baseball League exists because Commissioner Justine Siegal refused to accept that as permanent. As the WPBL’s official announcement framed it, August 1 was not just Opening Day but the day we build on history.
The league held its inaugural tryouts at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. in July 2025. As Wikipedia’s detailed account of the league’s formation explains, over 600 players registered to take part, including Mo’ne Davis, whose return to baseball after five years attracted significant media attention even before the season began. The first draft was conducted virtually in November 2025, with Kelsie Whitmore selected as the number one overall pick by WPBL San Francisco, and Mo’ne Davis taken tenth overall by WPBL Los Angeles.
The Four Teams and Their Stars
Los Angeles Queens
The Queens carry the biggest name recognition into this inaugural season, built around Mo’ne Davis, Ayami Sato, and Ashton Lansdell. As USA Today’s profile of Mo’ne Davis explained, Davis first captured the nation’s attention in 2014 at 13 years old, when she became the only girl on her Philadelphia Little League team, pitched a shutout in her first World Series game with a 70 mph fastball, and became an instant celebrity. She went on to play basketball and collegiate softball at Hampton University, earned a graduate degree from Columbia, and then returned to baseball at 24 as an outfielder for the WPBL’s Los Angeles franchise. “I’m just not done playing at all,” she said when announcing her return.
Ayami Sato is a legendary figure in Japanese women’s baseball who brings international credibility and genuine star power to the Queens lineup. Ashton Lansdell, a Savannah Bananas alumni and Cal State Fullerton veteran, rounds out a Queens roster that is by far the most recognisable combination of names in the league’s first season.
New York Heights
The Heights are built around Team USA stalwarts Denae Benites and Kylee Lahners. As Forbes documented from Opening Day, Benites hit the first home run in WPBL history during the inaugural game against Los Angeles, an achievement that will be in the record books for as long as the league operates.
San Francisco Firebells
The Firebells hold the most significant distinction of any team in the league’s first season: they own the number one overall draft pick. Kelsie Whitmore, the first player selected in WPBL history, is the face of San Francisco’s franchise. As she told Just Women’s Sports ahead of Opening Day, “Playing in a male-dominated environment, we kind of shrink ourselves. Once we all step on the field and we’re all with each other, it’s like the walls let down.” That quote captures something essential about what the WPBL represents for the players inside it.
Boston Hunters
Boston’s roster features some of the strongest international talent in the league, headlined by Korean pitcher Hyeonah Kim and Canadian national team star Alli Schroder. The Hunters represent the genuinely global nature of this league, with players from 11 countries across the four rosters providing an international dimension that reflects how widely the sport of baseball is played by women around the world, even when professional opportunities in the US did not exist.
Opening Day: What Actually Happened on August 1
Despite a rain-soaked parking lot and weather that threatened to derail the entire occasion, Opening Day at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield was everything the league hoped it would be. As NPR’s photo essay from the scene documented, three hours before game time, hundreds of fans swarmed the construction-lined, rain-soaked parking lot. Some lived down the road. Most had come from across the country. Some had traveled from as far away as South Korea and Australia.
A teenage girl holding a baseball mitt rushed through a balloon-adorned entrance and yelled at the security guard, asking if she was the very first inside. She was greeted by a custom bobblehead of Queens outfielder Mo’ne Davis. Carol and Mike Studer, grandparents of New York Heights first baseman London Studer, had flown in and worried the rain would postpone the game and they would miss their flight home.
Maybelle Blair, an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League veteran who played in the original league in the 1940s and 1950s, threw the ceremonial first pitch, passing a torch between the women who made professional baseball history in the mid-20th century and the women making it now. The league’s commissioner, Justine Siegal, passed a torch to youth representatives of Baseball For All, a gender equity initiative supporting girls in baseball, in a ceremony that connected the past, present, and future of women’s baseball in a single moment.
The First Game Result
The Los Angeles Queens defeated the New York Heights 10-8 in the sold-out inaugural game, a high-scoring, back-and-forth contest that gave the crowd exactly the kind of entertainment a first game needs to deliver. As Forbes reported from the game, Maggie Foxx recorded the first hit in WPBL history, and Denae Benites hit the league’s first home run. Those names are now permanently in the record books.
How to Watch: ESPN and Scripps Have the Rights
One of the most important factors in the WPBL’s long-term success is how it is being broadcast. As Just Women’s Sports confirmed, ESPN and Scripps have signed on as broadcast partners. ESPN will stream all 37 games of the inaugural season, with 11 of those games simulcast on the Scripps Sports Network. That broadcast footprint means every game is genuinely watchable for anyone with an ESPN subscription, and the simulcast agreement on Scripps gives the league additional free-to-air reach.
Having ESPN involved is significant beyond the immediate viewership numbers. ESPN’s institutional commitment to a sport signals to advertisers, sponsors, and future investors that the league has real backing, not just grassroots enthusiasm. The WPBL’s broadcast deal is the kind of arrangement that separates leagues that last from leagues that do not.
The Format and Season Structure
The inaugural season runs through the second half of September at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, a location with deep historical connections to women’s baseball. As the league’s own records note, one of the first-ever professional women’s baseball games was played in Springfield in 1875, making the choice of venue a deliberate tribute to the sport’s long American history.
Each of the four teams plays a 15-game regular season. Regular season standings determine the playoff matchups, leading to the league’s first-ever championship series. Playing all games at a single neutral-site stadium in the first season is a practical decision that allows the league to concentrate its audience, keep operating costs manageable, and establish a proof of concept before expanding to home markets in future seasons.
The WPBL has made clear that expansion is the goal. Commissioner Siegal has spoken publicly about the ambition to add more teams and eventually move to home-market play as the league builds its fanbase. The first season is explicitly positioned as the foundation, not the finished building.
Why the Venue Name Matters
Robin Roberts Stadium is named after Robin Roberts, the Hall of Fame pitcher who played for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1948 to 1961. The choice of naming a women’s professional baseball stadium after a male Hall of Famer might seem counterintuitive, but the history of Springfield’s stadium predates the WPBL. What matters is that the name is Robin Roberts, a person who stands for excellence and longevity in the sport of baseball, which is exactly what the new league is trying to build.
What This Means for Baseball in America
The WPBL’s launch arrives at a moment when women’s sports in America are experiencing genuine commercial growth across multiple leagues and disciplines. The NWSL, WNBA, and NWHL have all seen significant increases in viewership, attendance, and media coverage in recent years. The WPBL is entering a landscape that is more receptive to women’s professional sports than at any point in recent American history. As NPR’s coverage of the inaugural game noted, fans came from South Korea and Australia to watch the first game. That level of international engagement on day one is not something every new league can claim.
For Major League Baseball specifically, the WPBL presents both a model and a mirror. A model, because the league has been supported by several MLB organisations in various ways, including the use of the Boston Red Sox’s spring training stadium in Fort Myers for the WPBL’s spring training camp in March 2026. And a mirror, because the existence of a professional women’s league playing the same game at a high level will inevitably raise questions about how and when women might eventually play in or alongside the existing professional men’s structure.
None of that is a near-term reality. But the conversation is now legitimately open in a way it was not before August 1, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. What is the Women’s Pro Baseball League and when did it start?
The Women’s Pro Baseball League, known as the WPBL, is America’s first professional women’s baseball league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League folded in 1954. It launched its inaugural season on August 1, 2026, at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, with four teams competing in a 15-game regular season followed by a championship series.
Q2. What are the four teams in the WPBL?
The four inaugural WPBL teams are the Los Angeles Queens, the New York Heights, the Boston Hunters, and the San Francisco Firebells. Each team’s name was chosen to honor trailblazing women, and together they feature 60 players from 11 countries.
Q3. Who won the first ever WPBL game?
The Los Angeles Queens defeated the New York Heights 10-8 in the league’s sold-out inaugural game on August 1, 2026. Maggie Foxx recorded the first hit in WPBL history, and Denae Benites of the New York Heights hit the league’s first home run.
Q4. Why is Mo’ne Davis so significant to the WPBL?
Mo’ne Davis became a national celebrity in 2014 at age 13, when she pitched a shutout at the Little League World Series as the only girl on her team, becoming the cover subject of Sports Illustrated. After playing basketball and softball in college and earning a graduate degree from Columbia, she returned to baseball at 24 as an outfielder for the Los Angeles Queens, the tenth overall pick in the inaugural WPBL draft. Her return generated enormous media attention and helped make the league’s debut a major national story.
Q5. Where can I watch WPBL games?
ESPN is streaming all 37 games of the 2026 WPBL inaugural season. Eleven of those games are also simulcast on the Scripps Sports Network. All games are being played at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois through the second half of September, when the regular season and playoffs conclude.
Q6. Who was the number one draft pick in the first WPBL draft?
Kelsie Whitmore was selected as the number one overall pick in the inaugural WPBL draft, held virtually in November 2025. She was chosen by the San Francisco Firebells. Mo’ne Davis was the tenth overall pick, selected by the Los Angeles Queens.
The Women’s Pro Baseball League 2026 is one of the most genuinely exciting stories in American sports this summer, and not just because of who is playing. It is exciting because of what it represents: 72 years of women who loved this game with nowhere professional to play it in their own country, and a league that finally changed that. Whether the WPBL grows into a full multi-city operation or faces the challenges that have ended previous women’s sports ventures, the fans who drove from Delaware to see Mo’ne Davis play in Springfield on August 1 were witnessing something real and something historic. For more sports, entertainment and the stories shaping American life in 2026, keep reading Weblogs4u.
