Women's Baseball: Can It Go Professional?

Amber Kugel, a 15-year-old girl from Wisconsin plays with her high school's softball team during the school year and with a first place traveling team during summer, thinks there could be.

"I think that if they get enough publicity there would be enough fans to support the team. Right now they don't have enough advertising."

The WPF had a six-game contract with ESPN2 last year, and the ratings for the games were consistently higher than normal for that station. They are also broadcast on several local stations as well. But that is about the extent of their advertising. As for players, that is not a problem. Softball is becoming a major sport in college and high school, and in a few years those girls will graduate and move on to play professionally.

"I personally wouldn't care about the salary as long as I got to play softball. To me the money doesn't matter if it means not being able to play in the WPF or any dream for that matter," Amber told me. "If I had the chance to play on a professional softball league, I would surely take it. I watch the WPF in the summer and it is a dream of mine to someday play in it."

Next month: Exclusive Mother's Day interview with ABL playoff MVP Valerie Still. Will be posted by May 1, 1998

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic