A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The U.S. has arguably not had a prominent women's pro baseball league since the World War II era All-American Girls League. That's the one featured in the movie "A League Of Their Own." But last night, that changed.
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CJ SILAS: Tonight, we make history. Welcome to the inaugural 2025 Women's Pro Baseball League Draft.
MARTÍNEZ: That's sports journalist CJ Silas, who hosted the virtual event. For more on all this, we reached out to Emma Baccellieri, who writes for Sports Illustrated. So, Emma, four teams. New York, San Francisco, Boston and the city of champions, Los Angeles. So how is this league going to work?
EMMA BACCELLIERI: Yeah, so for this first year, it's going to be playing at a neutral site in Springfield, Illinois. It's a very small operation, so starting out with minimal travel costs. All centralized in one place that fans can visit. And then the plan is that in future years, those teams are going to be based in those cities. It will operate more like a traditional league. But starting off very small this summer. Starting play in August all in Springfield, Illinois.
MARTÍNEZ: OK, so it's going to be during the Major League Baseball season.
BACCELLIERI: Yes. Pretty short season, August and September. But right in the heart of that MLB home stretch of the season there at the end.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So, you know, I know the NCAA does not have women's college baseball teams. So where is this league going to get players from?
BACCELLIERI: Yeah, it's pretty interesting, if you look at the draft list of the players who were selected last night, that you really see representation from all over the baseball world. So in those Top 10 picks alone, you had Japan, Korea, the Dominican, Canada. Basically, anywhere you think of as a baseball-playing country, you have players coming from there to play in this league.
And then in terms of the American contingent, you know, even though there's never really been a pipeline for girls and women who play baseball, there always have been some women who have tried to make that work for them. And so, there are women who ended up playing college softball but have continued playing, you know, in men's rec leagues, doing whatever they can to stay playing the sport that they love. There's a women's baseball national team, which competes in the Women's Baseball World Cup every four years. So there are a fair amount of American players, too, as well as all of these international players.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And Mo'ne Davis, who, if everyone remembers, when she was 13, she was at the Little League World Series. She was selected by the Los Angeles club. So, yes, you got some star power already in this league.
BACCELLIERI: Yeah. I think, you know, really, for most girls, the only time you are going to be known as a baseball player is as one of those only girls at the Little League World Series. And you actually have quite a few who have come into this league, who were known as the only girl on their team 10 years ago or so and now have a chance to play with other girls and women in an opportunity like this.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Major League Baseball has invested in professional softball. Also, the Women's College World Series set a ratings record last year. What do you think has changed about people's attitudes toward women's pro sports like baseball and softball?
BACCELLIERI: I think the biggest thing is just the belief that this is an investment worth making, that this can be smart business sense, that there are audiences that want to watch women's sports. And also, that there's space for multiple women's sports, right? That they're not going to cannibalize each other. That you can have, in this case, both a pro softball league that's getting off the ground at the same time as this pro baseball league. And there's a real belief among the organizers that you can have both.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Emma Baccellieri with Sports Illustrated. Emma, thanks a lot.
BACCELLIERI: Thank you.
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THE ROCKFORD PEACHES: (Singing) We're the members of the All-American League. We come from cities near and far. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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