After 70+ years, women’s pro baseball is back. The inaugural season of the WPBL kicks off tomorrow, August 1st. My perfect girlfriend and GS alum Sabine joined me to talk through a brief history of women’s pro ball, what we know about the WPBL so far, and an overview of the NY Heights’ roster.
Here’s what we covered:
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943–1954), and the racism and femininity requirements baked into the organization
Toni Stone, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, and Connie Morgan, the three women who played in the Negro Leagues
Effa Manley, the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
How A League of Their Own (the 1992 film and 2022 A24 series) depicted women’s pro baseball in pop culture and media
Paths to the WPBL: Switching to softball, playing in the Banana Ball, and the US National Team bringing women like Kelsey Whitmore, Mo’ne Davis, and Ashton Lansdell into the spotlight
A full breakdown of our team, the New York Heights: our head coach (the league’s only woman manager) and our roster
I read and listened to a lot of good stuff in prep for this episode, which I’ll link below as always. Enjoy, and watch women’s baseball this weekend!
LINKS
Subscribe to Good Sport NYC on Substack
Follow the WPBL on Instagram
Follow the NY Heights on Instagram
Follow Good Sport NYC on Instagram, TikTok
Follow Christiana on Instagram, Substack
RESOURCES USED:
Crying In Baseball from the You’re Wrong About Podcast
Storied: Women of the Negro Leagues from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Dorothy Height by Arlisha Norwood from the National Women’s History Museum
