In A League of Their Own, Tom Hanks' character Coach Jimmy Dugan declared, "There's no crying in baseball!" But what if they're happy tears? After 72 years, professional women's baseball is back.

In August 2025, more than 600 women from 10 countries traveled to Nationals Park, home of the Washington Nationals, to try out for the Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL). Just 60 players earned spots on the league's first four teams, with the inaugural season beginning August 1, 2026, in Springfield, Illinois. First-round draft pick Kelsie Whitmore summed it up: "This is every little girl's dream to play professional baseball." It's been a long time coming.

If you ask someone about women's baseball, they'll probably mention A League of Their Own, but the real story started long before Hollywood. In 1866, Vassar College formed the country's first organized women's baseball team. Their uniform? Ankle-length wool dresses, not exactly ideal for stealing bases. Just 12 years later, the team was disbanded after parents raised concerns about their daughters' "safety."

The game returned in 1943 under extraordinary circumstances. With more than 500 Major League players serving in World War II, Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley worried baseball would lose its audience. His solution was the The All-American Girls Professional Ball League (AAGPBL), where women between ages 16 and 27 filled the diamond. Black women, however, were excluded and instead found opportunities in the Negro Leagues, where pioneers like Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, and Connie Morgan built remarkable careers of their own.

The women who joined the AAGPBL were expected to be as polished as they were talented athletes. The league’s etiquette book required players to maintain a "lady-like appearance," wear makeup, style their hair, and play in belted skirts that left them with unnecessary cuts, bruises, and road rash after every slide into base. None of it stopped them. At its peak in 1948, more than one million fans packed ballparks across the country. For many players, baseball provided a taste of financial independence, allowing them to earn more money than they ever had while traveling the country doing what they loved. But when the war ended and Major League Baseball resumed, the women's league disappeared by 1954.

Girls never stopped playing baseball, but they started to run out of places to play. Today, 100,000 girls play youth baseball in the U.S. By middle school, those numbers plummet. By the time high school rolls around, only about 1,000 girls nationwide still play, compared to 473,000 boys. Instead, girls are funneled toward softball, a different sport that offers established travel teams and college scholarships. Softball, which uses a larger ball and smaller field, was created in the 1880s as an indoor alternative to baseball. That, in combination with the underhand pitching, made it perfect for the “weaker” sex. As Assia Grazioli-Venier put it, "I was shocked, frankly, that baseball is the national pastime in the U.S., and we have every other major sport represented by men and women."

That's exactly what WPBL co-founder Justine Siegal set out to change. The first ever woman to coach an MLB team with the Oakland Athletics and the founder of Baseball for All, Siegal said becoming a mother only strengthened her resolve. She wanted her daughter, and every girl who loved baseball, to have a future in the sport she never did.

The timing couldn't be better. Women's sports continue to break records and expectations. Global women's sports revenue is expected to surpass $3 billion this year, while sponsorship investment is growing 50% faster than in men's top leagues. The WPBL hopes to build on that momentum with its inaugural four teams. Rather than choosing traditional mascots, each franchise honors a trailblazing woman: the New York Heights honors the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement” Dr. Dorothy Height, the Los Angeles Queens celebrate the “Queen of Baseball” Lizzie Murphy, the San Francisco Firebells honor civic leader Lillie Hitchcock Coit, and the Boston Hunters pay tribute to pioneering physician and women's rights advocate Dr. Harriot K. Hunt.

More than 70 years after women's professional baseball disappeared, two former AAGPBL players, 99-year-old Maybelle Blair and 91-year-old Jeneane Lesko, stood at the WPBL tryouts and watched a new generation chase the same dream they once had. They saw doors close and now they get to watch them reopen. 🎶 “Batter up, hear that call, the time has come, for one and all to play ball.” 🎶 This was the opening stanza of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League’s official song. And it couldn’t be more apropos over 70 years later. The time has come.

Esther Wallace is redefining what women's sports merchandise can be. As the Founder and Creative Director of Playa Society, Esther recognized that merch surrounding women’s teams and athletes deserved more. She built a streetwear brand rooted in storytelling, creating hand-drawn designs that celebrate the athletes, moments, and culture that have shaped women's sports. That vision struck a chord. From collaborations with the WNBA and its biggest stars to sold-out drops, Playa Society has become one of the most influential brands in women's sports. Esther isn't simply selling merch, she's helping build the culture surrounding women's sports, one design at a time.

What’s the worst career advice you’ve gotten?

When I was getting started as a solo entrepreneur, it was very overwhelming. Someone gave me the advice to “just hire anyone” to take things off my plate. It was the worst advice, because when you’re building a team, it’s important to hire the right people. You need people who understand how to build both an internal and external community.

What’s the best piece of non-obvious career advice you’ve gotten?

Don’t ask people who have never been there for directions. It's really important to build a network of people who have taken similar paths and bring real expertise and lived experience. Find those common denominators so that when you're seeking advice, you're doing it from a place of credibility.

What was a heartbeat moment for you in your career?

In the second year of my business, I was able to create player product. At the same time, Sylvia Fowles, a legendary basketball player and coach, was retiring and had an entire fan base that couldn’t access any jerseys or shirts with her name on it. I felt that I needed to make something both for her fans and Sylvia, who happens to be one of my favorite players of all time. After the game, I was standing on the court, and she gave me a hug and thanked me for creating the artwork and thinking of her. It made me realize that this is what I need to be doing with my life. The work is meaningful. It made her and her fans feel seen, and that’s powerful.

Who is one person you’d love to give flowers to from your career that influenced your journey? What advice or lesson did you learn from them?

I would give flowers to Tracy Hughes, an agent at Always Alpha. At my second Final Four pop-up, I didn't have any employees. The warehouse I was using suddenly shut down and I had to change warehouses quickly. During all of this, Tracy would stay up with me every night on the phone and help get everything together, including the floor plans. Her support was instrumental.

Where have you caused some good trouble in your career?

Everywhere, and especially the WNBA. We were the first boutique brand to secure the rights to create both league and player merchandise. There wasn't a playbook, infrastructure, or clear guidelines for what that looked like. We were building something that hadn't been done before, which meant pushing boundaries and, at times, asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

At the time, the prevailing belief was that player-centric merchandise for women simply wouldn't sell. But I was in the community, listening to fans, and talking to athletes. I knew there was demand for products that celebrated women's sports in a more authentic and creative way. Every design starts with one question: Would I wear this? If I wanted it in my closet, I believed there were thousands of other fans who would, too. It turns out they were just waiting for someone to make it.

Want to nominate a leader you admire? You can do so here.

Hunter Grace of The Female Quotient weighs in:

This can be incredibly frustrating when your company is talking the talk, but not walking the walk. Meditation apps, wellness stipends, and free yoga classes lose their impact if employees are drowning in unrealistic workloads and constant urgency.

Globally, organizations spend more than $60 billion on workplace wellness, yet burnout and disengagement continue to rise. Gallup estimates that burnout and low engagement cost the global economy $8.8 trillion annually. 

Approach the conversation with your manager through the lens of alignment. You can say something like: “I want to make sure I’m prioritizing the highest-impact work effectively. Right now, the workload is difficult to sustain, and I’d love to talk through priorities, timelines, and where I should focus most.”

This reframes the conversation around performance, clarity, and long-term sustainability instead of simply pointing out what feels broken. It signals that you care about doing great work, but also recognize that constantly operating at maximum capacity is not actually productive.

And for leaders, this is the bigger lesson. Wellness is not just about what companies offer, it’s about what they operationalize. If employees don’t have the time, space, or psychological safety to actually use the resources available to them, the message stops feeling supportive and starts feeling performative. Real workplace well-being is built through manageable expectations, clear priorities, autonomy, and trust. 

P.S. Got a burning career question? Serve it up here to Dear FQ to score advice from a powerhouse leader in our network.

Feedback shouldn’t feel like a performance review jump scare. It’s a necessary tool for growth, and it works best when it’s an active, ongoing exchange. Done well, feedback improves communication, engagement, productivity, and the quality of the work. But how it’s delivered makes the difference.

For many employees, scheduled 1:1 time is the preferred format. It creates space for real dialogue between a manager and employee, where both sides can share perspective, address challenges, and get clarity. Close behind are employees who want feedback in the moment, also known as fast feedback. Real-time input helps people adjust quickly, reinforce what’s working or not, and improve before small issues become bigger ones.

The key is making feedback part of the culture, not a once-a-year event with ominous calendar energy. When feedback is continuous, people understand the intention is to help them grow, improve their work, and make the team stronger. It becomes less scary because it’s not a surprise, it’s simply part of how everyone gets better together.

And the impact is real. Employees who receive continuous feedback are 3.6x more likely to be motivated to keep doing great work. So don’t wait for review season: ask, listen, adjust, and repeat. That’s how growth actually happens.

Batter up ⚾️

Xo,

The FQ

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