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BC athletes who have been selected to play in the inaugural Women’s Professional Baseball League in 2026 say they are hopeful it will lay the foundation for a sustainable future for women in a sport traditionally dominated by men.
Six BC athletes were selected in the first WPBL draft last week, out of a total of 20 Canadians, and all players were chosen by four U.S.-based teams.
The emerging league will begin play in the summer of 2026, with games taking place in Springfield, Illinois, which provides a central location for its four teams.
Liz Gilder, a left-handed pitcher who will suit up for the San Francisco team and was chosen 49th overall, said she was often the only girl playing baseball growing up in Port Moody, BC.
Next summer, when the Women’s Professional Baseball League throws its first pitch during its inaugural season, it will feature twenty Canadian athletes. Six of those athletes come from BC CBC’s Troy Charles sat down with some of them as they reflect on their recruitment and how they paved the way for the future of women’s sports.
“One thing we’ve noticed over the years is that between the ages of 12 and 14, a lot of girls drop out of baseball and move on to softball,” Gilder told CBC News.
“And that’s one of the things we want to prevent.”
Gilder, 24, who has played for the Canadian national team and Team BC over the years, says she has recently seen an increase in interest from BC girls looking to play “hardball” instead of softball.
An all-women’s baseball league she helped organize for Baseball BC started with just a couple of teams last year, but this year featured four times as many teams, she says.
“He [professional] “The league can also start to shine a light on other pathways for girls, like Team Canada, Team BC, all these other opportunities that girls didn’t even know existed and have always existed.”
First professional league since the 1950s
The new WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach for an MLB team, the Oakland Athletics, in 2015.
Its management team also includes Keith Stein, owner of a semi-professional men’s baseball team in Toronto.
When the WPBL debuts, it will be the first professional league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, immortalized in the 1992 film. A league of their own – dissolved in 1954.
The inaugural Women’s Professional Baseball League draft saw six BC players selected by teams before opening day next summer. Juliette Kladko, a 22-year-old left-handed pitcher from Vancouver, was selected by the Los Angeles team with the 68th pick in the draft. He said the league is recognizing the fact that girls want to play baseball and need opportunities to do so.
Juliette Kladko, a 22-year-old left-handed pitcher who was selected by the Los Angeles team 68th overall, noted that the launch of the WPBL comes amid a surge in interest in the women’s sport.
Just this year, The first season of the Northern Super League professional soccer league concluded, Toronto began putting the finishing touches on its Women’s National Basketball Association team and the Women’s Professional Hockey League expanded to Vancouver.
“I’ve been an athlete my whole life, I’m friends with athletes and we work hard. We want recognition,” Kladko told CBC. on the coast.
“And it’s very motivating to see all the … conversations that are coming out about hockey, the WNBA and now the WPBL, and it makes me excited about the future.”
Michelle Roche, a right-handed pitcher from Burnaby selected by the Los Angeles team 39th overall, noted that 20 Canadians were selected in the inaugural edition of the WPBL.
In the much larger men’s Major League Baseball, which has more than 1,000 players, only 22 Canadians made the team’s opening day roster.
From the launches of the PWHL and NSL to the breakout success of the WNBA in recent years, women’s sports have become big business.
“Especially if you think back to the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, the AGPL. There was some Canadian representation back then as well,” Roche, 20, said.
“So yeah, it’s very exciting to continue that legacy.”
Roche said the AGPL, which formed during World War II when men were drafted into the military, represented the “first act” in the history of professional women’s baseball.
The second act, according to the pitcher, was the fight to allow girls to play in minor league baseball, led by Maria Pepe of New Jersey in the 1970s.
“And now, kind of the third act is like this continuing story of women’s baseball. Now is our chance to show what we can do on a bigger stage, for the WPBL,” Roche said.
