Dispatch from the WPBL: You’re Part of the Team
Doc Lavin reports back from Springfield and the inaugural season of the Women’s Professional Baseball League
by Joe Horton
“As a fan, it was just great to be able to observe history in the making.”
Ballers official photographer Darrell “Doc” Lavin, along with other diehard B’s fans Wayne and Raelene, Sarah, and Cat, traveled this month to the Women’s Professional Baseball League in Springfield, IL. The four teams in the league’s inaugural season—the San Francisco Firebells, LA Queens, Boston Hunters, and New York Heights play each other throughout the month of August and into the playoffs in September. Former B’s pitcher Kelsie Whitmore was the league’s number one pick in its first draft last November. Doc spoke to Dispatches about covering the league as as a photographer and appreciating it as a fan.
As a photographer, he was able to see the players’ athleticism and skill up close. “Photographing it was fantastic in the access you have and being close to some of these players and seeing these amazing players in action.” In addition to Whitmore, he noted league stars like Mo’ne Davis and Britt Apgar of the Queens and Denver Bryant of the Hunters.
He also remembered covering a particular play when “there was just a ground out to short and the catcher, making her way down the line, as she runs right by me, she's going, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ She ran by and it was hilarious. They were just that way—they were taking it 100% serious, and there was nothing that wasn't serious about the athletes and how they played, but they had fun doing it. You know, they celebrated great plays, they celebrated home runs, as you should.”
As a fan, Doc appreciated the abundant sense of community shared by all of the fans regardless of team loyalty.
“It was a very inclusive community, which was great to see,” said Doc. “There were a lot of people that maybe they were fans of, let's say, LA, but they were there for all the games and were very supportive of everyone. That was one thing that was super cool: all the fans were cheering for all the teams. I've never seen that anywhere.”
The league has also embraced the legacy of women’s baseball, which was often on visual display in the stands. “A lot of the fans knew about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League because of A League of Their Own. There were a number of people out there wearing the Peaches, you know, the Rockford Peaches uniforms,” he said. “And the league made a very good point of honoring what came before them.”
Doc said he was also struck by the community similarities between the Ballers and Pioneer League and the WPBL. “In fact, I was just telling someone this morning that, very much like the Ballers, the players are accessible, and it's not only on Sundays, when they sign autographs. You see these players out there interacting with the fans. And that is so valuable. The people love it. They love when they have the ability to feel like they're part of the team. And the fans here [at Raimondi] feel that of course. They feel like they know the place and the players, and that goes a long way.”
In the future, Doc said he’d love to see each team be able to play in its home city, with a couple of barnstorming weeks at each stop, so that more fans can experience the league in person. Watching the WPBL, Doc was reminded that “there's something about small town baseball, minor league baseball, that a lot of people don't get to experience, but like this or with the Ballers, once they see it, they internalize it, and it becomes part of them.”
Photos from Darrell Lavin Photography.
Joe Horton is the editor of Dispatches from Raimondi.
