Category: History and More

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League is winding down its inaugural season this weekend, with the Bandits taking on the Talons in a best-of-three championship series in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

While the four AUSL teams (the Blaze and Volts are the other two) competed in a touring format this year, the league will move to a city-based model in 2026 and expand to six clubs.

By all indications, the women’s professional game is trending in the right direction.

Think of men’s softball, however, and you might envision teams stocked with big-gutted sluggers who are less concerned with the game’s final out than the outing for beer and pizza that comes afterwards.

Yet, there was a time when such weekend warriors played for pay, beginning with the American Professional Slo-Pitch League.

The APSPL was the brainchild of Bill Byrne, founder of the National Scouting Association. The NSA was designed to help match college athletes with pro teams, and after a stint in the World Football League (the 1974 Chicago Fire and 1975 Shreveport Steamer), he turned his attention to softball in 1976.

That year – in May – Byrne announced the formation of the APSPL, which would use a 12-inch ball and begin play on 1977 with four divisions. In mid-June Byrne revealed that the first four franchises would be located in Cleveland, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., and he was looking to start play with 16 franchises.

In a news release distributed to various outlets, Byrne said that the season would run from June to September with teams playing one game during the week and up to two on weekends. The season, consisting of 56 games, would conclude with a $100,000 championship series.

“The franchise fee is $25,000,” Byrne said. “In order for our standards to remain high, all franchises must have a park with sufficient lighting for color television, softball diamond of the highest quality, plenty of parking, and ample seating capacity. We are taking the year 1976 for organizational purposes and the establishment of a merchandising division, property rights and license division, film division, television division, marketing division, publicity division and a director of player operations.”

APSPL staff member Tim Koelble said that the time was right for men’s pro softball.

“This is a sport that’s never been tapped at this level,” Koelble said in a United Press International interview in November, 1976. “Surveys show that 26 million people play slo-pitch softball in America. That includes things like church leagues. We figure we can even make it just by drawing crowds from the people who play the game now.”

By August, Byrne’s plans had been scaled back.

“There are 15 or 20 groups we are working with,” Byrne told Associated Press. “When we see they are financially stable and have a suitable playing site available, then we’ll make some decisions. I’d like to have eight to 10 teams the first year – solid franchises like the four we have now.”

Unlike many upstarts, this one actually got off the ground.

The inaugural season featured 12 teams: the Baltimore Monuments, Chicago Storm, Cincinnati Suds, Cleveland Jaybirds, Columbus All-Americans, Detroit Caesars, Kentucky Bourbons, Milwaukee Copper Hearth, Minnesota Goofy’s, New York Clippers, Pittsburgh Hardhats and Trenton Statesmen.

There were a few occasions where the product seemed more like a home run derby; Minnesota and Detroit combined for 78-runs in one contest, and a four-game series between Chicago and Detroit produced 189 runs.

But as the season wore on the games became more competitive. All things considered, year one was a success.

The Caesars claimed the inaugural championship, sweeping Baltimore in four games. The winners featured former Detroit Tigers standouts Norm Cash and Jim Northrup, and several former Major League Baseball players participated in the league.

Chicago’s Benny “The Thumper” Holt led the APSPL in home runs with 89 (he is in the Chicago Softball Hall of Fame).

On July 20, 1977, baseball legend Whitey Ford was named the APSPL’s first commissioner, which gave the circuit some additional positive publicity.

“To say I’m enthusiastic about this new job is a gross understatement,” Ford said in an AP story. “Slo-pitch is going to fill avoid we have long had in our calendar of professional sports.”

And once the season was completed, former New York Yankees All-Star Joe Pepitone decided to switch sports and sign a two-year contract with the Statesmen.

In 1979 the league became a part of television history when – on September 7 – the game between the Milwaukee Schlitz (the club rebranded from Copper Hearth in 1978) and Kentucky Bourbons was the first live event ever televised by ESPN.

The APSPL had a two-year contract with the network.

But, as is the case with many such niche leagues, the APSPL came with an expiration date. It completed four seasons and in 1981 merged with the North American Slo-Pitch League to form the United Professional Softball League, which lasted through the 1982 campaign.

But the novelty was wearing off, teams came and went, and in the summer of 1983 that league quietly folded. Thus, the era of pro men’s slo-pitch came to an end.

No doubt slo-pitch is fun to play, and sometimes fun to watch. Still, the women’s fast-pitch version has helped transform the game into a “major” sport, with college softball a major draw and professional competition taking off.

It’s fun to think back on the days of the high-scoring APSPL – gotta love those 78-run contests – but high-level softball has evolved. And thanks to female athletes, its best days are still ahead.

The first weekend of Premiere Lacrosse League action is in the books, with four games played over two days in Albany, New York.

In case you’re wondering, the New York Atlas started things off with a 10-8 victory over the Carolina Chaos on Friday, followed by the California Redwoods outscoring the Denver Outlaws in the nightcap, 15-12.

On Saturday, the two-time defending PLL champion Utah Archers edged the Maryland Whipsnakes, 8-7, in a rematch of last year’s title game, and the Boston Cannons closed out weekend competition by defeating the Atlas, 16-12.

My fascination with field lacrosse goes back several years, but it often seemed like I was following a game that was destined to remain in a fixed niche. Now, however, it truly seems like it’s found solid footing with the PLL.

The circuit is in its seventh season, having grown from a touring series featuring clubs without city attachments to one that remains a traveling show but now reps markets. The next phase of its evolution will likely see it move to a traditional home and away schedule for each of its teams.

Some of the best lacrosse players in the world have a home in the PLL, and it has become one of my favorite sports to watch. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve thrown my emotional support behind the Chaos – mainly because I love Charlotte).

Yet, as successful as this venture has become, an early attempt at pro lacrosse in North America proved to be a spectacular failure.

The American Lacrosse League was founded in 1988 and if this is the first you’ve heard of it, you aren’t alone. Blink and you missed it.

The brainchild of two former All-American lacrosse players-turned businessmen, Terry Wallace and Bruce Meierdiercks, the ALL had an April 24, 1988, start. The season lineup featured the Baltimore Tribe, Boston Militia, Denver Rifles, Long Island Sachems, New Jersey Arrows and Syracuse Spirit.

Teams had 23-player rosters, including 14 with two-year, $10,000 contracts and nine playing for $4,000 over one season.

And like today’s PLL, the rosters were loaded. In fact, lineups included several future United States Lacrosse Hall of Fame inductees culled from elite college programs such as Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and UMass.

The Baltimore Sun reported in its April 24, 1988, edition that 80 percent of the league’s 138 players were All-Americans in college.

Tribe player Brooks Sweet – a future Hall of Famer – predicted that every clash would be a battle of elites.

“Every game is going to be like Johns Hopkins against Johns Hopkins,” Sweet, an attackman, said. “I was skeptical at first, but when I saw the caliber of players in the league, I was impressed.”

Rules were designed to make for a fast-paced, offensive game. Teams were limited to three longsticks (typically used by defenders and a midfielder) – five were allowed in the college game at the time. There was also a 25-second clearing clock, “on-the-fly” substitutions, and if an offensive player was fouled a flag was thrown but the penalty not assessed until the play’s completion.

Days before the opener, Arrows general manager John Pappas expressed both “hope and uncertainty” when talking to a reporter from Newsday. He pointed to a team jersey and said, “Could be a collector’s item someday. The question is, will it be hanging in the hall of fame or someone’s closet?”

Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Just over a month after opening day, the league was dead –   having played just 13 games.

The Denver franchise went belly up on May 18 and the rest of the league followed suit on May 28. Like many sports upstarts, it fell victim to lack of money – and lack of attendance.

“We got to know players we had read about and were able to play with them,” Arrows player Tom Grimaldi told the Montclair Times for a June 9, 1988, article. “Everyone was in the same boat. It’s disappointing that the league did not last.”

Added teammate John Shaw, “The level of competition was the best I’ve ever seen.”

The next outdoor pro league to come along was Major League Lacrosse, which began play in 2001 and lasted until 2020. That year it merged with PLL, which is now the gold standard for the play-for-pay game.

Thirty-seven years after the ill-fated ALL, professional field lacrosse is finally in a good place. The Women’s Lacrosse League debuted this year with four teams (the Boston Guard, California Palms, Maryland Charm and New York Charging), and attendance and TV audiences continue to rise.

Of course, it has a long way to go to catch up with the National Lacrosse League, a box lacrosse circuit whose roots go back to 1986. The NLL trails only the NBA and NHL in attendance among pro indoor sports worldwide.

But that’s a story for another time …

In 1992, A League of Their Own provided a funny – and loving – tribute to women’s professional baseball. The movie chronicled the exploits of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943-54), which featured 10 teams and more than 600 players during its 12-year run. While fictionalized, the comedy captured the spirit of a circuit that had been forgotten by many but deserved respect.

The AAGPBL’s final game was played on September 5, 1954, when the Kalamazoo Lassies defeated the Fort Wayne Daisies, 8-5, to win the championship series three games to two.

In 1994, women’s baseball returned in the form of the Colorado Silver Bullets, a traveling team that took on amateur and semi-pro men’s clubs in exhibition games over four seasons. Made up primarily of softball players who decided to give hardball a try, the club showed that female baseballers were more than just a gimmick.

The swan song of the Silver Bullets came on August 14, 1997, when they defeated the State Farm Machine, 5-3, to cap off a 23-22 campaign.

And more history will be made in May, 2026, but it’ll be a new beginning instead of an untimely end. Women’s play-for-pay baseball is set to return, owing a debt to its past but forging a modern path.

The formation of the Women’s Pro Baseball League was announced last October by co-founders Justine Siegal and Keith Stein. The plan is to begin with six franchises in 2026, located primarily in the northeastern United States, and go from there.

Registration for players closed on May 7, and two-time USA Baseball Sportswoman of the Year Alex Hugo will be overseeing July and August tryouts.

More than 500 players have already registered.

“The WPBL’s summer tryouts mark an important and exciting milestone in women’s sports,” Hugo said. “Female baseball players around-the-world have been waiting for this moment for over 70 years and I am honored to be leading the tryouts for the league.”

The WPBL’s inaugural season will consist of approximately 40 games, followed by playoffs.

Siegal became the first female coach of a pro men’s baseball team when she worked for the Brockton Rox of the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball in 2009. She’s also the founder and executive director of Baseball for All, the largest girls’ baseball organization in the United States. 

“I am so excited that there will finally be a professional women’s baseball league – it is a dream come true for all the girls and women who play America’s Pastime,” Siegal said. “The Women’s Pro Baseball League is here for all the girls and women who dream of a place to showcase their talents and play the game they love. We have been waiting over 70 years for a professional baseball league we can call our own. Our time is now.”

Muse Sport was named an advisory partner to the WPBL in April, and founding partner Assia Grazioli-Venier has been appointed chair of the league. Grazioli-Venier was the first woman board member in the 120-year history of Juventus Football Club, helping launch Juventus Women and associated properties.

Members of the WPBL Advisory Board are Donna Cohen, lawyer and member of the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Diversity and Inclusivity Commission; Emmy-winning documentarian Rhonda Eiffe; espnW co-founder Laura Gentile; communications strategist Kate Childs Graham; Leslie Heaphy, chair of the Society of American Baseball Research’s Women in Baseball Committee; former Arizona Diamondbacks executive Nona Lee; Dr. Digit Murphy, a longtime coach and former president of the Toronto Six pro hockey team; Ayani Sato, Team Japan pitcher, six-time World Cup champion and one of women’s baseball’s all-time great hurlers; and Dr. Kat Williams, professor emeritus of women’s sports history at Marshall University.

Yet, while the WPBL is looking to the future, it hasn’t forgotten its history.

Maybelle Blair, former player in the AAGPBL, is Honorary Chair of the WPBL Advisory Board. Her biography, All the Way: The Life of Baseball Trailblazer Maybelle Blair was released in March.

The addition of baseball seems like a natural fit for women’s professional sports. Basketball and soccer are well-established, and hockey recently joined the ranks with the Professional Women’s Hockey League in 2023.

The WPBL has a chance to give women’s pro ball its own “Big Four.”

“We are fortunate to live in a period of extraordinary growth and transformation in women’s sports,” Grazioli-Venier said. “I believe the WPBL is poised to join the ranks of other great women’s leagues like the WNBA, NWSL, and PWHL.”