Girls play ball: A brief history of women’s baseball that blazed the trail for the inaugural Women’s Pro Baseball League
- Joelle Milholm
- 7 hours ago
- 13 min read
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The hours go beyond working 9 to 5, but these women are definitely playing baseball for a living.
In the final third of the inaugural season of the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL), members of the Boston Hunters and Los Angeles Queens took batting practice, stretched, caught fly balls and fielded grounders. All in preparation for their game on Aug. 26.
At first glance, it’s just an average baseball game on an average summer day.
But it’s really so much more.
It’s the return of women playing baseball that the United States hasn’t seen since 1954 when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League ended. The fans in the stands know the history they are witnessing.
The moments before first pitch are already special when a tribute to Dolly Parton comes up on the scoreboard at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. The legendary singer/songwriter had passed away just a day prior.
She may not have played baseball, but the actress and philanthropist was a trailblazer in her own right. Paying homage to her before the first WPBL game that I was able to attend in person was a perfect moment — even if it brought tears to my eyes, which happened frequently. As a girl who grew up playing baseball with boys until I wasn’t allowed anymore, I decided to go on a 2,000-mile road trip to soak in the glory of women’s baseball.
After a moment of silence, Parton’s “9 to 5” rang out over the loudspeakers. It might as well be the anthem for a league that poured itself a cup of ambition to join the women’s sports hype train and make a dream come true for dozens of women, and thousands more watching around the world, a reality.
Instead of steady forward progress, women’s baseball has followed a fragmented timeline. It’s been a rollercoaster ride that helped the United States start to overcome gender stereotypes through showcasing top-notch baseball for thousands of fans 30 years before women were guaranteed the right to open their own checking accounts.
Only to see leagues be shut down and girls and women boxed out of the game. In 1972, 12-year-old Maria Pepe was forced to quit her Little League team because she was a girl. She became the central figure in a landmark lawsuit against Little League baseball and won, forcing the organization to drop its ban against girls two years later. Despite that triumph, girls remained rarities on Little League teams and they were still often pushed into softball.
It really is enough to drive you crazy if you let it.
Through it all, women baseball players have always been there. Take Springfield, for example. The location of the inaugural season is no accident as the area where Robin Roberts Stadium now stands hosted one of the first known women’s professional games in 1875. The players were paid and the fans were charged admission to watch the Blondes play the Burnettes. Before the rise of MLB, women players and teams weren’t that unusual in the 1800s. Then they were pushed back into the shadows.
All the while, women have had to use their love for the game to find creative ways to play and had to work extra hard to do it, but they have played as long as the game has existed.
With this historic moment in women’s sports taking center stage, it seemed like a great time to look at the amazing women and moments that blazed the trail to help make this happen.
As is all too common, often “herstories” are left out of history, so this isn’t a comprehensive list, nor does it attempt to be. It’s more of a reflection, a celebration and a tribute. It’s a love letter to the amazing women who came before, made sacrifices, challenged norms — sometimes even winning hearts and minds — and deserve to be remembered.
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
Made re-famous by their inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) arose when the World War II Draft depleted MLB rosters and fans. With women working in the factories and raising the families who remained, people still needed entertainment. And baseball owners still wanted to make money.
So Philip K. Wrigley, of the gum and field fame, started a quest to scout the country for the best women softball and baseball players to field teams in small Midwestern towns. There were women everywhere to choose from. They played with moms, dads and siblings on their farms or joined their dads' companies' softball teams, quickly becoming the best players on the field.
The women tried out for the new league and were assigned to teams by position need to ensure the most parity. It worked and the game thrived in minor league and county stadiums, covering the pages of local newspapers. The AAGPBL ran from 1943 to 1954, starting with softball and evolving into baseball.
The league peaked in 1948, drawing over 900,000 fans. They paid the talented women $45-$85 a week for the season. This was when the wartime country was coming out of the Depression and the average weekly wage for an American was $10-$20.
Despite the pendulum swinging in the direction of women’s rights after they proved they could do jobs traditionally reserved for men, interest in the AAGPBL waned, the money dried up and the league came to an end.
Penny Marshall’s hit 1992 film “A League of Their Own,” starring Gena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell and more, helped bring women’s baseball back into pop culture.
AAGPBL reunions started a decade earlier and reminded America that women love and play baseball.
For WPBL’s Opening Day on Aug. 1, former AAGPBL player and fierce advocate for women’s baseball Maybelle Blair threw out the first pitch, despite having broken ribs and being in a wheelchair. During the game, her joy radiated when she was interviewed by the ESPN crew.
“I have never been so thrilled in my 99 years. I have been wishing for this for 60 to 70 years. You have no idea how excited I am to see these women playing baseball at this caliber,” Blair said. “The main thing I am excited about is they having sliding pads. They have helmets. They have everything to protect them.
“When we played, we didn’t have sliding pads and you can still pull gravel out of my rear end here because we had those strawberries.”
Women in the Negro Leagues
On my road trip from Denver to Springfield to make the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage, I stopped through Kansas City to visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I wanted to see some of the women who were the first to play professional baseball on men’s teams.
At the museum, the women have their own section beyond the center field wall of the famous field with bronze statues of the leagues’ most famous players. It’s called “The Beauty of the Game: Celebrating the Women of the Negro Leagues.”
Marcenia Stone played for the semi-pro Twin Cities Colored Giants when she was just 16 years old. In her 20s, life circumstances moved Stone from Minnesota to San Francisco. She wanted to play again and found the American Legion Junior League (ALJL). The only problem was that the league was only for high school boys. So she lied about her age and changed her name to “Toni.”
The cover worked. She played for the ALJL, which opened more doors to play for more semi-pro teams in the 1940s. In 1953, the biggest door opened as Stone was recruited by the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues. They had an open roster spot thanks to Hank Aaron departing for the Boston Braves. Stone played in about 50 of the Clowns’ 150 games that season, reportedly making $12,000 and helping Indianapolis draw thousands of fans in stadiums east of the Mississippi River, where the Negro Leagues mostly played.
The next season, she was traded to the Kansas City Monarchs and played one more season. With baseball running through her veins, she continued to play and coach into her 60s before finally calling it a career. She was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1993.
When Stone went to Kansas City in 1954, the Clowns signed Connie Morgan. In the five years before, Morgan had been playing for the North Philadelphia Honey Drippers, an all-Black semi-professional women’s baseball team.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum also pointed out the additional barriers that Black women faced when pursuing their love of America's pastime. Highlighted in the recent “League of Their Own” TV show (2022), the AAGBL broke barriers in lots of ways, but not the color barrier. There were some Canadian players and even eight players from Cuba, but Black women were barred from the league.
Mamie “Peanut” Johnson found that out when, at age 17, she attempted to try out for the league in its earliest stages. She was sent away as Wrigley’s vision of marketing ideal ladylike women only included white women. In doing so, they segregated the league and missed out on a great opportunity to crack the heartless, illogical and artificial barriers designed and thriving in Jim Crow America.
Instead, Johnson, who grew up playing in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey, returned to sandlot ball. She continued to hone her pitching prowess, finally drawing the attention of the Clowns. A mother and wife, she still managed to join the team for the 1953-55 seasons, becoming the first woman pitcher in the Negro Leagues. Despite her 5-foot-3 frame, Johnson had a presence on the mound as evidenced by her 33-8 record.
Even when her playing days ended, she remained in the game, coaching and speaking to young players. She even served as a friend and mentor to a breakout Little League pitcher who became the first Little Leaguer to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated — Mo’ne Davis.
Davis has not only gone on to have an amazing career in Bananaball, but is also the center fielder and one of the leadoff hitters for the WPBL’s Los Angeles Queens.
Colorado Silver Bullets
Another milestone hit the diamond in 1994 when the Colorado Silver Bullets, an all-women’s pro baseball team, barnstormed the country and Canada from 1994-97 to play men’s professional and semi-pro teams.
As an 11-year-old baseball player myself, going to see the Silver Bullets play the Northern League All-Stars at Mile High Stadium on July 3, 1994 was one of the highlights of my childhood. Three years before the WNBA tipped off, the Silver Bullets, named after the light beer of their title sponsor Coors, were my first see-her, be-her moment.
Approximately 1,300 women attended the team’s open tryouts all around America with only 55 being invited to the final tryout in Florida in the spring of 1994. When the final roster was announced, it consisted of 24 women who went on to play 45 games in their inaugural season. Managed by five-time MLB All-Star and famed knuckleball pitcher Phil Niekro, the team consisted of softball players, baseball players and those who did both. They had about a month to learn to play together with many adjusting to the smaller ball, wooden bats, bigger fields and overhand pitching.
One of those women was Rachelle “Rocky” McCann, now Henley, a 25-year-old out of San Francisco. Baseball was her first love and she made her way back to the game after playing softball in college. Henley is now the manager of the WPBL’s New York Heights as the first and only woman to manage a WPBL team in the league’s first campaign.
Henley lights up when she talks about the opportunity to be a part of the Silver Bullets and play in beautiful stadiums like the one in Denver 30 years ago.
“The baseball part was amazing,” Henley said after the Heights beat the Los Angeles Queens on Aug. 27. “I was the third-string third baseman, so I did not do a lot of playing time, but I was just honored and blessed to be on that field. It was something really special. I will never forget that.”
Henley, who also played professional baseball for the San Jose Spitfires and has coached with Bay Sox Girls Baseball and Evolution Girls Baseball, said that the organization treated the players with nothing but respect. And it showed up in the facilities, accommodations and gear the players received. The team even had a clubbie, who did laundry and handled various tasks for the players.
“We traveled first class everywhere. We flew everywhere, which is unlike an independent baseball team. They usually take buses,” Henley said. “We had gear, like, maybe five or six different outfits, polo shirts, sweats, shorts, hats. We were dialed in. … Everyone had their own locker and chair. They shined your shoes for you.”
Attendance was strong for the first few seasons, but began to drop off. The Silver Bullets switched to aluminum bats in 1997 and posted a 23-22 winning season. After the season, Coors pulled its sponsorship after spending an estimated $8 million, and that was the end of the Silver Bullets.
As an 11-year-old kid watching the Silver Bullets, I would have never imagined that 32 years later, I would be talking with Henley, having her sign my Silver Bullets program from 1994 and witnessing women play professional baseball with her coaching.
The first season, the Silver Bullets only won six games as a brand new team playing against men who had played the game on a higher level their entire lives. Henley, like many of the WPBL players, spent her career either playing softball or playing baseball against men.
“We're playing against ex-major leaguers who threw nasty curveballs,” Henley said. “Now, we're seeing [accomplished pitchers] Ayami Sato and Jaida [Lee]. They're phenomenal athletes, but we're comparing apples to apples instead of apples to oranges. It's just different. It's way different.
Having a trailblazer like Henley be part of the WPBL is not lost on her players.
“It’s such a great opportunity to play for Coach Rocky,” said Heights infielder Kylee Lahners. “What she has done in this sport is amazing, what she continues to do is amazing and to actually be coached by Rocky is an honor.”
Women's World Baseball Cup served as springboard for WPBL
Only five teams took part in the first-ever Women’s World Baseball Cup in 2004. Hosted in Edmonton in Canada, the United States defeated Japan for the first championship. Flash forward to 2024, 12 teams participated in the ninth edition of the competition in Thunder Bay, Canada.
With teams from all corners of the globe, including Australia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Cuba, France and beyond, the tournament reflects the growth of the game beyond the United States. This was seen in even more color and brilliant storytelling in Jean Fruth’s 2024 documentary “See Her Be Her.”
Lahners is one of many players from the U.S. Women’s National Baseball team to play in the WPBL. Many of the athletes, who represent 11 different countries and territories, have played against each other before. Having lost to Japan in the 2024 World Cup, partly due to the shutdown pitching of legendary pitcher Ayami Sato, Lahners said playing against Sato and other world-class baseball players is very special.
“It's been amazing. All of us being here in Springfield. You need to see [Sato’s] preparation, and how she functions on game days, and what she has to do to get ready for games has been just amazing, and it's a testament to what kind of player she is, and how successful she is on the field,” Lahners said. “But it's been awesome to get to know her, and then, obviously, they can keep facing her is always fun.”
With a huge smile on her face, Lahners said it was also very fun to hit a homer off the ace in the Heights’ 12-4 win over Sato and the L.A. Queens on Aug. 27.
Boston Hunters catcher Beth Greenwood agreed about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play in this league.
“The culture among all the teams is phenomenal. I think a lot of us have grown up playing with or against each other. I think there is a lot of that friendly competition. We have a lot of camaraderie off the field, but when it comes to being on the field, it’s all about ‘I want to beat you. I want to win,’” Greenwood said. “For us, this is deeper than just this year. It’s something all of us have been working on for a long time. We all want to be the ones who will be the champion at the end of the season.
But, it’s perhaps San Francisco Firebells pitcher and slugger Kelsie Whitmore who explained it best. Whitmore, the No. 1 pick in the WPBL Draft, has already broken many barriers in her noteworthy career. Outside of being on the U.S. Women’s Baseball National team since 2014, Whitmore became the first woman to play in the Atlantic League and Pioneer League, two independent men’s leagues, in addition to playing in Bananaball. Sitting next to her teammate Ela Day-Bédard, she tried to explain the significance of the WPBL after a 14-6 win over Boston.
“It’s everything. It’s everything we’ve ever wanted. Just a year ago, I was telling a reporter, ‘Is it that difficult just to ask for our own place, our own league?’” she said. “Fast forward and we have our own league now. It means a lot. I think it’s very healing for a lot of the inner child in all of us that had to go through a lot and that wanted this. I think it’s really important. I think it’s awesome that there are so many young girls showing up. They are the next generation for this league.
“So it’s our duty to not only put a good product on the field and to also inspire every young girl to continue playing this game and to know that they belong in it and they have a place after high school and they can pursue this as a career. It’s just the beginning of it. It’s only up from here and so I think this league is everything. This dream is coming true. It’s been awesome so far.”
As the regular season closes out and the playoffs approach on Sept. 9, these players have been following Dolly’s anthem.
They let you dream just to watch 'em shatter
You're just a step on the bossman's ladder
But you've got dreams he'll never take away
In the same boat with a lot of your friends
Waitin' for the day your ship'll come in
And the tide's gonna turn and it's all gonna roll your way
No matter who’s crowned champion at the end, the WPBL is a win for the players and fans who have waited years for its arrival.
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