In 1954, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) held its final season. Seventy-two years later, the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) is now stepping up to the plate to give women the opportunity to play at the next level. 

The AAGPBL was formed in 1943 to keep Major League Baseball parks from shuttering due to the disbandment of minor and major league teams as young men were drafted into the armed services during World War II. Try-outs for the league were held in multiple major cities in the United States and included Canadian players.  

From those tryouts, 75 women were invited to the final tryout at Wrigley Field in Chicago, with 60 of them making one of four rosters for the league’s inaugural season — the Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox. Fourteen Canadian players found a place on those initial rosters. Among them were four Saskatchewan players, all hailing from Regina: Mary “Bonnie” Baker, Catherine Bennett, Ethel Gould and Mildred McAuley.  

The WPBL is charting a similar course by also starting with only four teams. Announced in 2024, the league had more than 600 players from 10 different countries attend the open tryouts in Washington in August of 2025. Cuts were made daily starting on the first day and that initial pool was eventually whittled down to 120 draft-eligible players. From there, the league’s inaugural draft was held with players being selected by either San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York or Boston. 

“It was so exciting! I had so many family and friends watching,” said Adelaide Ziebart. “It was just a crazy experience because growing up as a girl in baseball, you never really think that that’s something that you might have the opportunity to experience because you just don’t see it growing up. But yeah, to have my name announced and to have it across that big screen was exciting.” 

Ziebart is one of two Saskatoon players selected in the WPBL draft that was held in December of last year. The right-fielder was picked in fifth round, 86^th overall by New York. Just ahead of her in the draft, picked 85^th overall by Boston, was second baseman Braidy Birdsall.  

“Holy mackerel, I was excited! I honestly didn’t have any expectations, I was just really excited to be a part of something and watch everything firsthand,” said Birdsall. “So, when my name was finally called, I was pretty shocked. Obviously pretty excited, I was jumping up and down and hollering and waking up my roommates…Honestly, I was just on top of the world, it was amazing.” 

Carrying on a Saskatchewan tradition 

Both players are following in the footsteps of Saskatchewan players who helped fill the rosters of the AAGPBL during its 12-year run. The numbers have changed over the years, but according to the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame (SSHoF), of the approximately 600 women that played in the league, 68 of them were Canadian with 30 of them having origins in Saskatchewan. That means about 44 per cent of the Canadians in the AAGBPL came from the province, although their family, friends and fellow Saskatchewanians weren’t aware of the impact they made on the sport of baseball at the time. 

“Because there was no video broadcast, when you come back, you can’t necessarily convey to people ‘This is what I did, this is how big it was.’ You know, they had a million people in attendance, not all at once, but over the course of a year in the league. It was hard for people to get a sense of it,” said Maureen Ulrich. “It wasn’t until the movie A League of Their Own that people actually had a visual and finally, I think they got the attention back home that they deserved.” 

An author, playwright and avid baseball fan, in 2015, Ulrich found herself intrigued by the idea of a one-woman play after seeing one at the Saskatoon Fringe. Initially, she wasn’t sure what her play would focus on, but sometime in the next roughly 24 hours, she came across a story by the Regina LeaderPost about a commemoration for Mary Baker in Regina’s Central Park.  

From there, she investigated, diving deeper into the league as well as the stories of the Saskatchewan players who competed. Her research eventually led her to the SSHoF where she hoped to simply gain more information, but it ended up creating a mutually beneficial partnership. 

“Sheila Kelly, who was the executive director of the Hall of Fame at that time, said ‘Oh my gosh, this is our 50^th anniversary and we think that your play would be a really great thing to showcase the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame.’,” said Ulrich. “They funded our performances in Moose Jaw, Battlefords, Saskatoon. We wouldn’t have done four Fringes and we wouldn’t have travelled all over the province with their help.” 

That assistance was available through the Sport History Project Grant. Administered by the SSHoF with funding from the Sask Lotteries Trust Fund for Sport, Culture and Recreation, the grant allows an organization to capture and record Saskatchewan sport history. Traditionally, this history has been documented through a book but has evolved and expanded in more recent years to include websites and travelling exhibits. So, Ulrich’s play was still a unique way to share those stories, much like the play itself. 

Diamond Girls boasted 21 characters but featured only one cast member. Initially played by Malia Becker, the actress switched between the characters utilizing a variety of props and changing her body language. In telling the story, Ulrich chose to focus on three specific players: Baker, Daisy Junor and Arleene Noga. While Ulrich relied on records, newspaper articles and information from family members for most of her research, she was fortunate enough to work directly with Noga, as Baker had passed away in 2003 and Junor in 2012. 

“She really connected with the youth that came out to the games, especially the kids that sat along third base, she really interacted with them. And I think the league was such a highlight for her,” Ulrich said of Noga, who passed away in 2017. 

Born in Ogema, Noga played third base and shortstop in the AAGPBL from 1945-1948 for both the Fort Wayne Daisies and the Muskegon Lassies. In those three seasons, she found herself topping the stats multiple times, setting a single-season record for fielding average with .942 in 1947 and became known as the Iron Lady after playing 300 consecutive baseball games. Assisting with Ulrich’s play was also not the first time that Noga helped advise an artistic version of the league, as she also consulted on the A League of Their Own movie teaching Rosie O’Donnell how to play shortstop and instructing Madonna on how to slide. She was also featured in a Canadian Heritage Minute that showcased Baker.  

While Ulrich believes many of the players in the AAGPBL were impacted by having played in the league and returned with a mindset of “not being afraid to take on any challenge”, many of them didn’t share much about their time with the league with their friends or even their families. So, movies, tv shows, plays and other mediums have helped share these stories of these mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters who helped pave the way for the WPBL, even though the time between the two leagues is a bit too long for Ulrich’s taste. 

“It is no surprise that we have finally come back to this. It’s only taken almost 100 years but thank goodness.” 

Next up to bat 

That’s where Birdsall, Ziebart and the other 118 players from the first WPBL draft come in. The two Saskatoon players have had similar trajectories when it comes to their baseball journeys. They started playing when they were about 10 years old, they each played for the Saskatoon Royals, the city’s only all-girls baseball team, as well as on mixed teams and eventually made their way to represent Saskatchewan on the national stage multiple times. However, their journey into the WPBL is where they differ slightly, despite being drafted one after the other. 

Learning about the WPBL came second hand for Birdsall, but she quickly realized it was something she wanted to pursue. 

“I started doing my own research and was looking at it and was like ‘This is something I would love to be doing!’ From there, I kept my eye out so I could learn as much information as possible about the WPBL and anything related to it. And then I started thinking about my goals and how I can potentially get to that stage. From there, I’ve just been putting the work in.” 

Unfortunately, an injury earlier in the season forced Birdsall — who has two Golden Gloves at third base to her name and is recognized as one of Canada’s Top-40 female players — to miss out on the league’s tryouts in August, but she was able to submit a tape. What scouts saw on the tape, as well as word of mouth from other individuals who knew her and were invovled with the league, earned her spot on the draft-eligible list.  

Meanwhile, Ziebart heard about the league as soon as it was announced.  

“I was watching the See Her Be Her documentary and the news dropped as soon as the documentary was done. I just knew it was something that I was looking to pursue and I was hoping that I would have the opportunity to be a part of in some manner.” 

In her career, Ziebart has represented her home province at nine national championships, most recently, the 2025 19U women’s baseball championships where she earned defensive player of the tournament and helped Saskatchewan to finish third. Shortly after wrapping that event, she attended the tryout for the WPBL, where she made it through three days of cuts, earning herself the opportunity to play at Washington Nationals Park and was then eligible for the draft. 

Next up for the WPBL is its Countdown Tour, which will see players from all the league’s four teams travel to cities in the United States building anticipation for the start of the league on August 1. The first stop of the tour is Florida, where 20 of the league’s players will gather for a spring training session. More tour dates are still to come. 

While neither Birdsall or Ziebart will be a part of the initial tour stop, both are proud to play a role in the rebirth of women’s professional baseball and in bringing women’s baseball in Saskatchewan full circle, as Ziebart noted: 

“I heard a story of one of my grandma’s friend’s mother who played in the AAGPBL and she was from Regina. So, it’s really cool that women back then had these opportunities and they were able to come from small-town Saskatchewan and play baseball and it’s exciting now that girls from Saskatchewan will also have the chance to play baseball.”

The 30 Saskatchewan players who played in the AAGBPL