WASHINGTON, D.C. — Milwaukee native Yaz Rodriguez grew up watching her brothers playing baseball while her father tossed her a ball in friendly games of catch. “When I was able to play in middle school,” she said, “I did softball until my freshman year of college.”
Baseball had always been her passion, but playing it simply wasn’t in the cards for many young girls.
Last month, Rodriguez joined dozens of other players who were trying out for the Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL), set to begin its first season in May as only the third women’s professional baseball league in the United States. It follows in the footsteps of the historic All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and ’50s and the short-lived Ladies League in the 1990s. Its founder, Philip K. Wrigley, previously the owner of the Chicago Cubs, intended to keep baseball fields active while many American men were fighting in World War II, so he put women to play. His solution gained a strong following, which held on until the league’s final year in 1954.
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The Women’s Professional Baseball League is reimagining the legacy of Wrigley’s all-American girls with a more inclusive mission.
As players entered the first round of in-person tryouts at the National Youth Baseball Academy in Washington, D.C., last month, they were met with a sign that showcased a quote from legendary tennis player Billie Jean King: “I couldn’t grow up to be a baseball player. It crushed me. Every girl deserves the dream to play professional baseball.”
As the founder of the largest girls’ baseball organization in the United States, Baseball for All, Justine Siegal has empowered women and girls never to take no for an answer when it comes to playing the game they love. Now, as co-founder of the Women’s Professional Baseball League, Siegal is banking on giving women and girls the opportunity to pursue baseball as an athletic career.
“It’s fantastic that we’re going to be able to give an opportunity to showcase the best of women’s baseball. Also, the trickle-down effect of being able to get more girls playing baseball, more acceptance of girls and women playing baseball and how that will create exposure for more girls’ and women’s teams to form around the world,” Siegal said.
(Alyssa Schukar for The 19th)
Siegal tried to join a baseball team as a child but said she was denied by the coach because she was a girl, a dynamic that’s all too familiar to those looking to secure a spot in the WPBL.
One of them is Meagan Haney, 22, from Los Angeles. “It was a dream of mine since I was a kid to be a professional baseball player. It was never an option, really. I was too small to play with men, so as soon as there was a women’s league, I was all for it,” she said.
Though the United States has not had an active women’s baseball league in decades, USA Baseball does oversee the Women’s National Team, which was established in 2004. Players like Kylee Lahners, who has played third base for the team since 2018, showed up at the WPBL tryouts, hoping to expand her talents.
There was also Mo’ne Davis, a former Little League Baseball pitcher and Hampton University softball star from Philadelphia. Davis made history in 2014 as the first girl to throw a shutout — a game where the opposing team scores no runs — during her time as a Little League Baseball pitcher.
After coaching Major League Baseball’s Trailblazer Series, securing a graduate degree at Columbia University and excelling in Hampton University’s softball program, Davis believes now is the time for her to return to baseball.
“I just feel like I can never get away from” baseball, she said in an interview with Major League Baseball. “No matter how hard I try, somehow it’s always going to pull me back in different directions.”
Kim Ra-kyung was there, too. She is the first woman to play baseball for Korea’s university league, the youngest woman to play on South Korea’s women’s national baseball team (she was just 15) and the founder of a South Korean women’s baseball team of her own, Just Do Baseball.
“Girls doubt that they can play baseball because of the lack of opportunities, and end up giving up because they can’t be a professional baseball player,” Ra-kyung said in a 2022 interview with Korea JoongAng Daily.
Softball became the alternative for at least some athletes at last month’s tryouts. But softball is not the same as baseball. Softball uses a larger ball and smaller fields, and it employs an underhand pitching technique rather than baseball’s overhand pitch.
“Growing up I started playing baseball but back then we didn’t have that big dream to become a pro baseball player so at the age of 15 I had to transition to softball … and then I heard the great news,” said Claudia Santana, 27, from Dominican Republic.
The WPBL offered a mix of in-person tryouts and video submissions for athletes who could not make it to Washington, D.C. Siegal says that the league plans to create six teams but notes that there could be fewer in their first season. The cities that these teams will call home have not yet been announced.
The league’s opening season will last seven weeks — four weeks of regular season, one week for the all-star competition and two weeks of playoffs. Those who are selected will be provided housing and payment. Players will be paid per game; the rate will be based on the order in which they were drafted.
The players trying out were “pumped,” Siegal said, adding: “It’s an honor for me to be with them in this experience and to let them have their dream.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article omitted a mention of Ladies League Baseball.
