Maybelle Blair drew the loudest reaction before the first pitch of the Martha Reeves National Anthem night, then the Women’s Professional Baseball League delivered a 10-8 debut win for the Los Angeles Queens over the New York Heights on Saturday in Springfield, Ill. The game gave the league an immediate on-field result and a crowd of more than 4,000 a first look at how this restart can work.
Blair, Whitmore, and the opening ceremony
Blair, 99, threw a ceremonial first pitch to Kelsie Whitmore, and Denae Benites said, “I think that’s pretty incredible” after the tribute. The pregame ceremony honored the past, present and future of women’s baseball, and Blair received the biggest ovation of the night.
Sarah Hodel was already thinking about that history before first pitch. “Back in high school I was on my speech team and my informative speech was on women in baseball,” she said at Robin Roberts Stadium. “So as soon as I saw this happening a couple years ago it was my goal to come.”
Queens recover from 8-4
Maggie Foxx gave the league its first hit with a two-run single in the first inning, then finished with the quote that matched the scale of the moment: “When I walked on the field, I started crying because of how much this moment meant and how much it meant to everybody.” The New York Heights answered with Benites’ two-run drive to center in the bottom of the fourth, the league’s first home run, before the Queens came from behind.
Los Angeles trailed 8-4 before scoring two runs in the sixth inning and four more in the final frame. That kind of late swing is the part the WPBL will want to bottle; a debut can survive ceremony and nostalgia, but it still needs a game that feels competitive to the people who came early and stayed through the finish.
More than 4,000 at Robin Roberts Stadium
More than 4,000 people attended the seven-inning contest, which was played in wet and windy conditions after a rain-delayed pregame ceremony. Antonietta Mabry brought her family, and Rosalee Mabry, 9, said, “I’m excited to be here because I play softball and I really like it and it’s really cool that I get to see professional women play.”
The WPBL now has a first box score, a first crowd, and a first test of staying power. It is the first women’s professional baseball league in the United States in almost 30 years, and Sunday’s game between the Firebells and the Boston Hunters will push the league from launch night into routine.
How long the Women’s Professional Baseball League can sustain that start beyond its debut season is the real business question, but Saturday gave it something it needed more than ceremony: a competitive finish, a visible audience, and a game that produced its own history instead of leaning only on the past.
