The Women’s Pro Baseball League will play its inaugural season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield.
The WPBL plans to begin play on Aug. 1. The Women’s Baseball World Cup is being held in Rockford — about three hours north of Springfield — from July 22-26.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Boston are the four teams for the league’s 2026 season. San Francisco will pick first in a snake-style draft on Thursday night, followed by Los Angeles, New York and Boston. The WPBL said there will be six draft rounds, with each team selecting five players per round.
Former Little League star Mo’ne Davis, USA Baseball’s Kelsie Whitmore and Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato are among the top players expected to be selected in the draft.
The WPBL said Robin Roberts Stadium “offers a central location” among its four founding clubs. Springfield also hosted one of the earliest paid women’s games in 1875, according to a WPBL news release.
The ballpark is named for Springfield native and Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts, who briefly played for the Chicago Cubs in 1966. Part of the Springfield Park District, the stadium has a seating capacity of 5,200 and has recently installed an LED videoboard.
The upstart WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach for an MLB team with the Oakland Athletics in 2015. When it debuts, it will be the first pro league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — immortalized in the film “A League of Their Own” — dissolved in 1954.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/18/womens-pro-baseball-league-springfield/
