Some young girls can now look to the future and see themselves as athletes. They can dream about high school bus rides that will one day become college scholarships.

Women’s sports teams are slowly popping up across the country for different professional leagues, and it represents something very important: opportunity. 

This weekend marked the inaugural matchups for the Women’s Pro Baseball League, a league that many, including myself, have been patiently waiting for.

Now, young girls don’t have to walk up to the plate and dream that they’re Mookie Betts or Fernando Tatís Jr.

They can be Gabrielle Haas, Denver Bryant, Niki Eckert, Kelsie Whimore, and the list goes on.

I grew up playing baseball, not softball, and never felt the want to switch over to the other sport. It just didn’t seem necessary. Sure, I had a lot of friends who played softball, and I thought they were just as skilled, but I just didn’t see the point. 

Softball was created by a man so that baseball could be played indoors during the wintertime. Then another man decided baseball was too “strenuous” for women, so softball became our sport. 

For decades, the answer to any young girl who wanted to keep playing baseball at the highest level was essentially, “Well… you can’t.”

You could play through Little League. You could compete against the boys. You could make incredible memories. A few girls even broke through and got the taste for college baseball. 

But eventually the path just stopped. Until now.

After four leagues that eventually petered out, this one is hopefully here to stay.

The league opened with all four teams taking the field: the Boston Hunters, Los Angeles Queens, New York Heights, and San Francisco Firebells. It was four rosters full of women who finally got the chance to put on professional baseball uniforms in the United States and knew they weren’t simply making history; they were building a future.

It’s reminiscent of the birth of the National Women’s Soccer League, which was founded in 2012 after the failure of the Women’s United Soccer Association (2001-2003) and Women’s Professional Soccer (2007-2012).

While I only watched Boston’s matchup against San Francisco, which didn’t go great for us, I found myself smiling at every highlight that popped up on Instagram from the game I hadn’t had the chance to watch.

Perhaps the defining moment of the game for Boston was watching Gabrielle Haas stretch out and make an incredible catch with the ball hanging out of her glove as she hit the ground. It was such a close call that even the commentators said that she hadn’t caught it, correcting themselves when they saw her beaming smile. 

While I’m extremely happy to see this new league launch, I have two complaints.

The season is only lasting a month, giving it more of a tournament feel than anything else. And I understand that with four teams, there are only so many games that can be played, but I wish it were just a little longer. Can you think of any professional sports leagues that only last a month? 

My second complaint has to do with the location of the games: Springfield, Illinois. While the area has a deep connection with the history of women’s baseball, I don’t have the time to fly out to Springfield and watch a game live. 

With two teams hailing from the East Coast and two from the West Coast, it’s being treated as a central location. But it might be a little hard for these teams to connect to their “hometown” fan bases when they aren’t able to play there. 

If games were being played anywhere near Massachusetts, I’d already have tickets. I’d happily spend a summer evening sitting in the stands watching professional women’s baseball. I don’t think I’d be alone either.

Our state has slowly gathered a collection of women’s sports teams over the past three years, with the Boston Fleet making a debut in 2023 and the Boston Legacy having its inaugural season this year.

The addition of the Hunters is something worth celebrating; I just wish I could do it in person.

Because a new women’s sports league is another move of the needle for the young girls who dream of hitting dingers and hearing their name come before “for three!” 

The dream can exist beyond anything it could before.

I hope this league succeeds, the crowds grow, and more teams join.

I hope there’s a day they take to the field in Massachusetts. And maybe it won’t be Fenway Park at first.

But maybe one day it will.