Last month, the Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) announced the launch of a six-team circuit for female athletes in 2026.

Co-founders Justine Siegal and Keith Stein announced that six northeastern teams would participate in the inaugural season.

Siegal was previously known in baseball, becoming the first female coach of a professional men’s baseball team, working for the Brockton Rox, an independent Canadian squad.

Later, Siegal entered the Major League Baseball side of the sport, becoming the first female coach employed by a team, the Oakland Athletics. 

Before becoming a co-founder of the WPBL, Siegal created the nonprofit Baseball for All, providing opportunities for female athletes to play and coach baseball. 

Former player Ayami Sato, who pitched for the Japanese Women’s Baseball League, and former MLB manager Cito Gaston, who led the Toronto Blue Jays to back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993, have also joined the WPBL as special advisors.

This would not be the first time a professional baseball league for women has been formed. Between 1943 and 1954, partly due to World War II, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was created and quickly became an extremely well-known organization for women in sports.

The Women’s Professional Baseball League is currently holding sign-ups on its website and looking to contact female athletes who may be interested in becoming a professional baseball player.

“It would be very enjoyable for girls to have the option to be able to play baseball and softball,” said Blake Bellflower, a freshman infielder for the GCSU baseball team.

With there already being a professional women’s softball league, Women’s Professional Fastpitch (WPF), giving women another outlet via the WPBL would allow for another way to enter the world of athletics. 

“I feel like women could just show off their talent and everything, so I think it’s a great idea,” said Jacy Singleton, a freshman pitcher for the GCSU softball team.

Since women have not been able to have their own baseball league for over eighty years, the WPBL will help provide them with an outlet to develop their own clubs and grow the sport in its contemporary popularity.

“A lot of women can play baseball, so I think it’s a great idea,” Singleton said. 

There are many differences between baseball and softball, so it may take players time to switch from one to the other. 

“I think the pitching style is very different, like the overhand versus underhand motion,” Singleton said.

Pitching changes between the two sports. Softball plays on smaller fields; the distance between the home plate and the mound is much closer, and the ball is almost double the size of a softball.

While these differences may not stand out too much, the way the sport is played pitching-wise is entirely different; with baseball players throwing mostly overhand, some variations calling for a submarine or sidearm motion are allowed, while softball calls for a fully underarm windmill-like motion, generating high velocity on release. 

While the average college baseball pitch is thrown around 89 miles per hour and the average softball pitch thrown is around 60 miles per hour, the distance to the plate plays a significant role, making the average softball pitch look faster than a 100-mile-per-hour pitch in baseball.

“I don’t know if I would play baseball, but I definitely would watch women’s baseball,” Singleton said. “I think it’s an amazing thing for women to do.” 

With the popularity of women’s baseball in Japan, it will be interesting to see how the WPBL pans out beginning with their first season.