Women’s Pro Baseball League will play its inaugural season in Springfield, Illinois

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Women’s Pro Baseball League will play its inaugural season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois.

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 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 has a seating capacity of 5,200, and it recently installed a LED videoboard.

The upstart WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach for an MLB team, 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.

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