The Women’s Professional Baseball League is betting that women’s baseball has a future in the US

Filed 2h ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Nan Ning Huang Sokaz 12 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Women's Professional Baseball League completed its inaugural 30-game season across four teams, with the San Francisco Firebells finishing atop the standings before playoffs began Sept. 9. Nearly half the league's 65 players come from outside the U.S., including top talent like Japan's Ayami Sato and South Korea's Hyeonah Kim, reflecting more established women's baseball pipelines abroad than in the U.S., where girls are still largely funneled into softball by high school.

Players earn roughly $6,333 for the eight-week season under a $95,000 team salary cap, with the league covering housing and splitting sponsorship revenue. The season wasn't without turbulence: Boston Hunters manager Keith Foulke was fired three games in, and three weeks later a board member filed a civil complaint alleging misuse of funds and conflicts of interest in the league's hiring and board makeup.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Getting a league off the ground is one thing, keeping the board's own house in order is another, and a misuse-of-funds complaint three weeks into your first season is not the debut anybody drew up. Still, a sellout crowd and a walk-off grand slam are the kind of thing that actually gets a sport a second season, paperwork or no paperwork. Whether this sticks around probably depends less on Duchamp-style philosophy and more on whether the checks clear.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Scheming Weasel (slower version) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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