This story originally appeared on Them.
It’s no surprise that sapphics are so into the Professional Women’s Baseball League. The connection between lesbianism and softball feels almost ancient — and baseball? That’s just like baseball except you pitch the ball overhand! (There are other differences, I’m told, but as someone who never plans to get into baseball beyond cheering for the queer women who play it, I’ll learn those another time.) But still, I’m not sure the world is fully prepared for the kind of thirst the PWBL will unleash upon the world. When we first posted about the league, which officially kicks off in August, and noted that it has an even higher percentage of out LGBTQ+ players than the (already very gay) WNBA, we never could have anticipated the response. No less a legend than A League of Their Own Star Rosie O’Donnell celebrated the happy news — and the player we selected as the cover image, Ashton Lansdell of the Los Angeles Queens, definitely took notice.
For those who need a quick primer, the inaugural season of the PWBL will feature four teams — the Boston Hunters, the Los Angeles Queens, the New York Heights, and the San Francisco Firebells — all competing in Springfield, Illinois beginning August 1 and continuing through September. This marks the first professional women’s baseball league since the 1954 conclusion of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was featured in A League of Their Own. Each team has a roster of 15 players and, of course, a wildly high percentage of them — roughly a third! — are openly LGBTQ+, according to Autostraddle’s tally. Several Them readers expressed a (purely academic, we’re sure) interest in being able to follow these players on social media, so we’re here to help.
Read on for all the LGBTQ+ WPBL (whew, what an acronym) players you need to know, along with their official player portraits. We’ve also included links to the public Instagram profiles of the players when available, but please do any DM sliding respectfully — and note that many are already taken.
Jordan Eyster
Team: San Francisco Firebells
Kylee Lahners
Team: New York Heights
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s newsletters.
