The Women’s Professional Baseball League has chosen New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco as the cities that will represent the four teams that will compete in the inaugural season, the league announced Tuesday.
The upstart league co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach for an MLB team with the Oakland Athletics in 2015, announced plans last year to launch in 2026 as a six-team circuit with a regular season, playoffs and all-star game. When it debuts, it will be the first pro league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League – immortalized in “A League of Their Own” – dissolved in 1954.
The WPBL will now launch with four teams for the inaugural season, with 15 players per club.
The top 100 players from the WPBL’s summer tryouts advanced to the league’s draft next month, which will also feature some of the sport’s biggest stars, including former Little League star Mo’ne Davis, USA baseball’s Kelsie Whitmore and Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato.
All of the WPBL’s games will be played at a neutral venue in 2026, which the league said will be announced at a later date.
The league added the four cities were selected because of their market size and large fan presence.
“Each of these cities are storied sports cities,” Siegal said in a statement, “and we can’t wait to connect with the fans who live there and baseball fans across the country.”
See here, here, and here for the background. There had been some talk about six teams originally, I don’t know whether that was inaccurate or if something changed. The basic approach of all games in the first season being played at a single neutral site is similar to what the Athletes Unlimited Softball League originally announced before they played a touring schedule. That league will have its teams in their cities next year, while the WPBL will aim for 2027. Good to have more baseball to look forward to.