The Women’s Professional Baseball League is set to kick off its first season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. The league is scheduled to commence play on August 1. Meanwhile, the Women’s Baseball World Cup is currently taking place in Rockford, approximately three hours north of Springfield, from July 22-26.
For the 2026 season, the league will feature teams from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. The draft order will begin with San Francisco selecting first in a snake-style draft on Thursday evening, followed by Los Angeles, New York, and Boston. The WPBL has announced that the draft will comprise six rounds, with each team picking five players per round. Notable players expected to be chosen in the draft include former Little League standout Mo’ne Davis, USA Baseball’s Kelsie Whitmore, and Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato.
Robin Roberts Stadium was selected as the league’s venue due to its central location among the founding clubs. Springfield’s baseball history dates back to 1875 when it hosted one of the earliest paid women’s games, as noted in a WPBL news release. The stadium boasts a seating capacity of 5,200 and recently upgraded with an LED videoboard.
The Women’s Professional Baseball League was co-founded by Justine Siegal, who made history as the first female coach for an MLB team, the Oakland Athletics, in 2015. The league’s inception marks the first professional women’s baseball league since the dissolution of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1954, famously portrayed in the movie “A League of Their Own.”