After a 72-year wait, women’s professional baseball is back.
The Women’s Professional Baseball League will launch Aug. 1, 2026, marking the first pro league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — immortalized in A League of Their Own — folded in 1954.
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Before opening day arrives, Stockton will get an early look.
The WPBL’s Countdown Tour comes to Banner Island Ballpark on Thursday, July 2, from 5-8:30 p.m., bringing many of the nation’s top female players together ahead of the inaugural season.
The event begins at 5 p.m. with on-field workouts led by accomplished baseball leaders Alex Hugo, Bree Nasti, Rocky Henley and Tamara Holmes. At 7:30 p.m., fans are invited onto the field for the WPBL FanFest, where they can meet players, collect autographs and take photos.
Among the players scheduled to appear:
New York
The Women’s Professional Baseball League was co-founded by Justine Siegal, who made history in 2015 as the first woman to coach for a Major League Baseball team with the Oakland Athletics.
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Nearly a decade later, on March 18, 2025, she unveiled plans for a four-team league featuring a regular season, playoffs and an All-Star Game.
The inaugural franchises will represent New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, cities the league said were chosen for their size and deep-rooted baseball fan bases.
“Each of these cities are storied sports cities, and we can’t wait to connect with the fans who live there and baseball fans across the country,” Siegal said in a statement Oct. 21, 2025.
Despite the teams’ home markets, every game will be played at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, which the league selected as a neutral site in the center of the country.
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The inaugural season opens Aug. 1 with a 30-game schedule running through mid-September before concluding with a two-week playoff. Teams will play seven-inning games Thursday through Sunday, twice a week, with 15-player rosters and aluminum bats.
More than 600 players from 10 countries arrived at Nationals Park for open tryouts Aug. 22-25, 2025, all chasing one of 120 spots in the WPBL Draft.
Five countries — the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea and the Dominican Republic — were represented among the first nine selections. Players from Mexico, Curacao, Australia, France and England were also drafted, with ages ranging from 18 to 37. Each of the league’s four teams selected 30 players.
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San Francisco opened the inaugural draft by selecting former USA Baseball player and Savannah Bananas standout Kelsie Whitmore. Los Angeles followed with Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato before later adding pitcher-outfielder Mo’ne Davis, who became the first girl to win a game and throw a shutout in the Little League World Series at age 13.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Historic Women’s Professional Baseball League event comes to Stockton
