08/03/2026
A WOW energy award to Mo'ne Davis! 😲🙌🏽 The current momentum of Girls/Women in sports is exciting! This is a period of unprecedented visibility and growth (though we should note that significant inequalities remain in pay, leadership, safety, and opportunities). Women’s sport now reaches about 50% of the global population, up from 45% in 2022!! 💪🏽(Source: https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/facts-and-figures-women-in-sport)
Twelve years ago, Mo'ne Davis became the first girl ever to win a game and throw a shutout at the Little League World Series, firing a 70-mile-per-hour fastball for her Philadelphia team and landing, at 13, on the cover of Sports Illustrated. On Saturday, she made history again -- taking the field in center for the Los Angeles Queens and scoring the very first run in the history of the Women's Professional Baseball League, the first pro baseball circuit for women in the United States since the league immortalized in "A League of Their Own" folded in 1954.
For many years following Little League, it looked like she was done with baseball for good. Mo'ne played college softball, earned a graduate degree from Columbia, and stepped away from the game entirely. "Baseball was not on the horizon at all," she has said. In her twenties, she gave herself room to wander -- ESPN commentary, video production, pickup basketball, even a travel flag football league, which, she said, reignited her competitive edge. She hates to lose, and losing again lit the old fire.
"Ultimately, I always figured I would always come back to baseball, somehow," she said. "I didn't think I would be playing, though." Then came the announcement of a new professional league for women -- one she wasn't sure, at first, was even real.
"This league is about her," said Justine Siegal, the league's co-founder and the first woman ever to coach for a Major League team. "She was a star player, and dreamt of playing professional baseball just like her teammates. But instead of being encouraged to go after her dreams, she was told that she should be playing softball... This is a league for Mo'ne, and all of the girls and women who have dreamt of playing this great sport."
The league itself has been years in the making. It fielded four inaugural teams this season, each named for a trailblazing woman: the New York Heights, for civil rights leader Dorothy Height; the San Francisco Firebells, for firefighting champion Lillie Hitchcock Coit; the Boston Hunters, for pioneering physician Harriot K. Hunt; and Mo'ne's own Los Angeles Queens, for Lizzie Murphy, the early-twentieth-century ballplayer known as the "Queen of the Diamond."
Sixty players from eleven countries fill the rosters. For this first season, all four teams share a single home -- the century-old Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois -- and every game is streaming on ESPN.
On opening day, before a sold-out crowd of more than four thousand -- many of whom had lined up for hours to snag a Mo'ne Davis bobblehead -- the ceremonial first pitch was thrown by Maybelle Blair, a 92-year-old veteran of that original All-American league, a torch passed from one generation of women who were told the game wasn't theirs to the next. Minutes later, that next generation took the field -- and it was Mo'ne who scored first.
Leading off in center for the Queens, Mo'ne reached base in the top of the first and came around on a single by teammate Maggie Foxx to score the first run in the new league's history. The Queens trailed by four late but rallied for four runs in the final inning to win, 10-8, before a crowd full of parents who had brought their daughters to see what was suddenly possible.
Mo'ne tried out as a pitcher, a shortstop, and an outfielder before settling into center field -- back on a ball field at last, surrounded by women who play the game she loves.
"This is probably some of the most fun I've had," she said. "I feel right at home."
--> The WPBL's inaugural season runs through September. To learn more about the league and its four teams, visit https://www.womensprobaseballleague.com/
For two excellent books about the history of the historic women's baseball league, we highly recommend "A Whole New Ball Game" for ages 10 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-whole-new-ball-game) and "The Incredible Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League" for teens and adults, 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/incredible-women-aagpbl)
To learn more about the film "A League Of Their Own" -- recommended for ages 10 and up, visit https://www.amightygirl.com/a-league-of-their-own or you can stream it online at https://amzn.to/4yWVPK1
For two picture books about other real-life women who made baseball history as players, we highly recommend "Anybody's Game: Kathryn Johnson, the First Girl to Play Little League Baseball" (https://www.amightygirl.com/anybody-s-game) and "Mighty Jackie: The Strike-Out Queen" (https://www.amightygirl.com/mighty-jackie), both for ages 4 to 8
For an inspiring introduction to 50 incredible female athletes, we highly recommend the excellent illustrated biography "Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/women-in-sports
For one of our favorite t-shirts for sports-loving Mighty Girls -- young and old -- that proudly states "I'm not strong for a girl. I'm just strong.", visit https://www.amightygirl.com/strong-t-shirt
To read more about Mo'ne Davis's road back to baseball and the launch of the Women's Professional Baseball League, visit the AP at https://apnews.com/article/wpbl-baseball-tryouts-mone-davis-ae1734047989a11795b97b9d3fcd6506
