Los Angeles Queens help launch Womens Pro

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The first day all the members of the Women’s Professional Baseball League had been at the same subject, it rained.

That didn’t dampen the grins around Robin Roberts Field the day before the league opens play Saturday, marking the first skilled ladies’s baseball video games in 72 years.

“Getting to be together for six whole weeks or around two whole months with them [if we make the playoffs] is honestly going to be a game changer,” said third baseman Ashton Lansdell, who stars for the USA national crew. “I think we’re going to build a really unique and exciting culture that is going to last a very long time, especially with the inaugural season at WPBL. Like we’re starting from the ground up, so we get to build all of these things from the very beginning.”

The Los Angeles Queens, managed by former Dodgers second baseman Eric Young, have arguably the most star-studded roster, behind Savannah Bananas third baseman Lansdell, former Little League star Mo’ne Davis and Japanese ace pitcher Ayami Sato.

“I pretty much have an idea who I want to lead off and who’s my starter,” Young said. “Those two things I do know. But the rest of the lineup, I’m looking forward to making it. The first one will be very special, just like everything else.”

Women’s baseball has been long fractured with few alternatives for the best to collect in one spot. The only constant event has been the Women’s Baseball World Cup, with the U.S. going undefeated in group play this week in Rockford forward of the WPBL’s fast week of preseason practices.

The WPBL would be the first ladies’s baseball league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which operated from 1943 until 1954 to offset the loss of male baseball gamers called into motion during World War II. The league gained recognition and notoriety when it was dramatized in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”

While ladies’s baseball didn’t increase and ladies had been principally restricted to enjoying softball, some ladies sought a probability to play the game they liked.

The WPBL, even with a restricted six-week season at one location, helps many gamers understand seemingly not possible goals and honoring the first recorded ladies’s recreation with a paid crowd and the home of the single-season Springfield Sallies.

Games will span seven innings and the league will use aluminum bats featured in faculty baseball and softball, while outfield dimensions had been altered to be nearer to the Women’s World Cup subject dimensions. Salaries vary from $300-$500 per recreation for the 15-player rosters.

“It’s just what we’ve all dreamed of our whole lives,” Lansdell said. “The coolest thing out of all of it is that we’re starting this league this year, but in the next five to 10 years, even two years down the road, I’m so excited to see just the growth of women’s baseball and the amount of hope and inspiration that we have.”

Like many ladies’s baseball gamers, Lansdell had a historical past in softball, contributing to the Women’s College World Series season in 2025 at Ole Miss. More lately, she went 11-for-13 with two doubles and two home runs in 5 video games during the U.S. World Cup group stage for a historic .846 batting average.

Players heat up before a recreation on the fourth day of tryouts for the Women’s Professional Baseball League in August 2025 at Nationals Park in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

She would be the core of the Queens’ lineup, surrounded by some of the most important title in the game. Brittany Apgar grew up enjoying in all-boys baseball tournaments before enjoying faculty softball at Greensboro College.

“I think this is really when the quote that baseball is 90% mental and 10% physical kicks in because that game’s going to be a lot,” Apgar said of the Saturday opener. “Like we have the honor of doing the first game. That will be a lot of pressure on everyone.”

The Queens flaunt one of the best proper sides of the infield in the league with Lansdell at third and Curacan 19-year-old shortstop Thaima Maximiliana.

Australian shortstop Caitlin Eynon hit .375 in the World Cup and might contribute to the Queens’ lineup, too.

Davis highlights an outfield that consists of Apgar and Japanese heart fielder Suzu Narasaki. Amira Hondras, 18, performed for the U.S. after spending time with MLB Develops and the Chicago White Sox youth league and is one of the best younger ladies’s baseball prospects in the nation.

Sato leads a employees of pitchers from a number of backgrounds. Canadian 19-year-old right-hander Michelle Roche performs faculty baseball in British Columbia while 38-year-old veteran Meggie Meidlinger has been a bullpen stopper for the U.S.

“More than anything, I’m excited for the opportunity to play with talented players from around the world,” Sato said through her translator, Mayo Hiran. “That’s something that I’ve been working for for a long time.”

The Queens face the New York Heights to start their season and will play 30 video games through the start of September before a two-week playoff period.

By this time next 12 months, they might get a probability to play home video games in the Los Angeles space. The league hasn’t announced its plans for shifting video games exterior of Illinois other than to affirm they aspire to do so.

But for a few moments this weekend, in Springfield alone, goals will come true and a sport will probably be reborn.

“It’s going to be a lot of people’s first time for a lot of things,” Apgar said. “Some of the people didn’t actually get to make it to tryouts, so there’s some people that are drafted that I haven’t even seen in person before. It’s all exciting.”