Women’s Professional Baseball coming to Springfield

Springfield, the site of the very first paid professional women’s baseball game of any kind, will soon be home again to women’s professional baseball. The inaugural season of the Women’s Professional Baseball League will be played at Robin Roberts Stadium starting Aug. 1.

Four teams, from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and New York, will play a seven-week inaugural regular season in Springfield and then depart for their home cities for a second season. That won’t be the end of the WPBL in Springfield, however. As part of an agreement between the league, the city and Golden Rule Entertainment – owners of the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes of the Prospect League – a developmental league for the WPBL will continue on for the league in 2027. Think of it as a Triple-A pipeline for women’s pro baseball having its home in Springfield.

“We’re going to have a big year in Springfield in 2026, and this is like a cherry on top of that,” Springfield mayor Misty Buscher said at a press conference Nov. 17 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. “Robin Roberts has a great history and modern upgrades, and I can’t wait to see that first pitch.”

An ordinance transferring ownership of the ballpark to the nonprofit Friends of Robin Roberts Stadium is expected to be finalized at the Nov. 18 Springfield City Council meeting. Jamie Toole and Melissa Gaynor, managers and partial owners of the Lucky Horseshoes, have expressed their desire to upgrade the facility and attract more entertainment options. The city served as the middleman for the property, which was previously owned and operated by the Springfield Park District.

An 1875 Daily Illinois State Register article with the headline “Sensation of the Age, Lady Bass Ball Match” touted a game between teams named the Blondes and Brunettes, which began a barnstorming tour on Sept. 11 at the “ball grounds” on North Seventh Street.

“At the hour for the game to commence the girls ‘came to the scratch’ clad in a neat and showy uniform, and at once proceeded to business,” the article said. “The contest seemed to be greatly enjoyed by the spectators and an unusual ‘pose,’ a home run or a fly-catch, was certain to provoke a burst of applause. Everything, however, was done decently and in order, and there was nothing, save, perhaps, the exhibition of female anatomy, to which exception could be taken.”

Presumably, not as much literary attention will focus on “female anatomy” for the WPBL players.

The league is funded by Justine Siegal and Keith Stein, with Muse Capital as a financial adviser. The four teams will have 15 roster spots, with the league’s first entry draft happening soon. While there is no network television partner, it is a goal, said International Women’s Baseball Center chief executive Kat Williams, who will be an adviser to the WPBL.

“Baseball is the best game in the world and women have always played it,” Williams said. “This is not new. People think softball has always been the only sport for women, but in fact softball was never created for women. In 1939, it was created by men in Chicago so that they could play indoors during the winter.”

Springfield was home to a team, the Sallies, in 1948 as part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which played from 1943-54 and was made famous by the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. The Springfield Sallies, who played at the old Fitzpatrick Stadium, was not a good team and drew limited crowds, leading to their relocation during the season.

What makes the league’s organizers think women’s pro baseball can find success in Springfield, even if just for one season?

“The best players in the world will be here playing,” said Amanda Gianelloni, who has played for the U.S. Women’s Baseball World Cup team and figures to be a top draftee of the new league. “The league has gone from zero followers to more than 100,000 followers on social media, and we’re getting a lot of buzz from a national media perspective.”

Games in the WPBL will be seven innings and feature aluminum bats. The season will begin following the conclusion of the Lucky Horseshoes season, with games played on Thursday nights and a weekend night, most likely Sunday.

If girls only have the option to play softball in high schools and junior high leagues, as it currently stands, won’t the WPBL have trouble developing baseball players? They are, as Williams pointed out, “two totally different sports.”

“It’ll be interesting to see what happens,” Gianelloni said. “Maybe we will see women’s baseball start happening more in high schools. As our league grows and hopefully more teams added, hopefully more young girls will want to play baseball beyond high school and not just softball.”

Title XI required the equivalent of boys’ baseball to be offered to high-school girls, and softball was deemed that equivalent. But Williams, who said she played softball and loved it, wants to give real baseball another shot to women professionally.

“That’s why this developmental league here will be so important. It’ll be a pipeline for the top league. We’re out there. We love baseball, both to watch it and to play it,” she said.