The Women’s Professional Baseball League is set to kick off its first season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. Scheduled to start on August 1, the league’s debut comes right after the Women’s Baseball World Cup takes place in Rockford, just a few hours away, running from July 22 to July 26.
For the 2026 season, the league will consist of four teams: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. San Francisco will have the first pick in the draft, which will follow a snake-style format, with Los Angeles, New York, and Boston to follow. The draft will span six rounds, with each team selecting five players per round. Notable players like Mo’ne Davis, Kelsie Whitmore from USA Baseball, and Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato are anticipated to be among the top picks.
Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield was chosen as the league’s home venue due to its central location among the founding clubs. The stadium, with a seating capacity of 5,200, recently upgraded with an LED videoboard, holds historical significance as it hosted one of the earliest paid women’s games in 1875.
Co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach for an MLB team (Oakland Athletics in 2015), the new Women’s Professional Baseball League aims to fill the gap left by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which disbanded in 1954 and was popularized by the movie “A League of Their Own.”
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