SS-18 Leagues of Their Own: The Past and Future of Women's Baseball

Leagues of Their Own: The Past and Future of Women’s Baseball John T. Wilson The history and legacy of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) and its players has not garnered much public interest, attention, or coverage beyond the 1992 film A League of Their Own. The recent announcement that a six-team women’s baseball league (the Women’s Pro Baseball League or WPBL) will be launched in the United States in 2026 has also lacked attention, aside from the initial reports of the league’s launch. In an attempt to raise the public’s awareness and interest in the AAGPBL and the upcoming WPBL, my poster will succinctly tell the story of the AAGPBL through two League players, Sophie Kurys and Jean Faut. Their statistics alone make them standout – Kurys’s prolific base-stealing rivaled that of Rickey Henderson’s, and Faut’s pitching records rival those of the very best Major League Baseball (MLB) pitchers of all time – but the fact that Kurys and Faut were able to achieve such great success in a league that changed its rules and regulations nearly every season, and sometimes in the middle of the season, makes them standout even more. The aim of this poster is not to suggest that the greatness of past players like Sophie Kurys and Jean Faut will translate to greatness for any upcoming WPBL’s players. Rather, the aim of the poster is to share the story of the AAGPBL through two of its greatest players, with the hope that their stories, and the story of the AAGPBL, will bring about greater public interest in the upcoming WPBL.