The Women’s Professional Baseball League kicks off today, although San Francisco’s first game is on Sunday, against Boston. The WPBL is the first professional playing opportunity for women since the “A League of Their Own” disbanded in 1954. The WPBL will begin with just four teams, nominally based in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. However, all games will be played in Springfield Illinois, at Robin Roberts Stadium. The league held a draft last November, after running summer tryouts in 2025. Teams will have rosters of 15, after final cuts, although quite a few more names than 15 are listed on the San Francisco team’s Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Firebells The WPBL will play a four week regular season, spend a week in “all star activities”, and then conclude with a two week long playoff: https://www.womensprobaseballleague.com/schedule The WPBL has just announced a television deal with ESPN – always an important step in getting a new league going.
The name SF Firebells is pretty good! It honors Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who lived from 1843-1929. She was a character, from Wikipedia, “considered eccentric, smoking cigars and wearing trousers long before it was socially acceptable for women to do so. She was an avid gambler and often dressed like a man in order to gamble in the male-only establishments that dotted North Beach.” Her death bequest to add beauty to the city she loved provided the funds used to build Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, named for her husband. She also loved firefighters, having helped a truck get up Telegraph Hill in 1858 at age 15, and was a friend to the fire department ever after. Her nickname was “Firebelle Lil” so that is the origin of the Firebell’s name. Pretty good team logo, too, a bell and a phoenix combined. Another design uses Valkyrie’s lavender, to try to draw on their amazing popularity:
The Firebells had the first overall pick, and took Kelsie Whitmore with it. Whitmore’s story shows exactly why the WPBL is so long overdue. She grew up playing little league, and then was the only girl on her high school baseball team. Women’s softball in college, and has been on the US women’s national baseball team since 2014, playing in tournaments like the Pan American Cup. She has played professionally on several independent league teams, notably the Staten Island FerryHawks in 2022, becoming the first woman to play in the Atlantic League. In 2024 Whitlmore was with the Oakland Ballers, to be the first woman to play in the Pioneer League. Last year she joined the Savannah Bananas, and is still affiliated with them. Go Kelsie! That kind of determination to play ball will always merit a Picture of the Post.
The final two games before the trading deadline are
• Saturday, 5:40, Tyler Mahle (3-9, 4.96) vs. RHP Walker Buehler (6-5, 5.13)
• Sunday, 1:10, Landen Roupp (7-9, 4.12) vs. RHP Michael King (6-7, 3.38)
