Justine Siegal and the Women’s Pro Baseball League: How a Jewish Coach Built a Path for Women to Play Professional Baseball

Justine Siegal is a baseball coach and organizer who has spent decades creating opportunities for girls and women to play baseball. She formed an all-girl youth team, coached at multiple levels, earned graduate degrees in sports studies and sports psychology, and built a nonprofit to grow girls' participation in baseball.

How the Women's Pro Baseball League launched

League (WPBL) launched in summer 2026. The league started with four teams—the Los Angeles Queens, San Francisco Firebells, Boston Hunters, and New York Heights—and reported drawing more than 600 players to tryouts the previous fall. The league reached its first championship series in that inaugural season.

Siegal's baseball journey began early. After being told in her youth that girls should play softball rather than baseball, she committed to playing baseball. She created the Sparks, the first all-girl team to compete in a national tournament intended for boys. She coached college baseball, taught physical education at a Jewish day school, and pursued graduate study—earning a Masters and a PhD in fields related to sport and sport psychology.

• In 2009 Siegal became the first woman hired as a first base coach for a team in the American-Canadian independent professional baseball league.
• In 2015 she coached in the Oakland A's instructional league, becoming the first female coach in an MLB organization's instructional arm.
• In 2017 she served as mental skills coach for Team Israel at the World Baseball Classic.

Baseball for All and player development

Siegal founded Baseball for All, a nonprofit that encourages girls to play baseball and creates development pathways. The organization contributed significantly to the WPBL's inaugural season: about 30% of players drafted into the league had been part of Baseball for All.

The WPBL arrives at a moment when women's sports have growing visibility but still limited professional opportunities in many disciplines. Siegal's decades of organizing, coaching, and program-building created the feeder systems and visibility that helped make a women's professional baseball league possible.

Siegal has framed the WPBL and Baseball for All as part of building "a better future" for the next generation of players. Her public remarks link the league's launch to long-term player development and broader access for women who want to play baseball professionally.

Siegal's long record offer a concrete example of how sustained organizing, coaching credentials, nonprofit work, and community support can create new professional pathways for women athletes. For players and families interested in women's baseball, the league and the organizations behind it represent a newly available route to play at higher levels.