• by Fern Siegel , Yesterday

The debut season of the WPBL (Women's pro Baseball League) begins Aug. 1.

The teams — New York Heights, San Francisco Firebells, Boston Hunters and Los Angeles Queens — are inspired by the athletes who preceded them. Their names were carefully selected to honor an outstanding woman who braved convention and broke barriers in everything from medicine to sports.

These pioneers are: Dorothy Irene Height, civil-rights activist, The Heights; Harriot K. Hunt, physician/women's rights activist, The Hunters; Lillie Hitchcock Coit, The Firebells. A big supporter of firefighters, Hunt bequeathed the money for Coit Tower in San Francisco. Lizzie Murphy, The Queens: Murphy played baseball when sports options for women were severely limited. In 1922, she was the first woman to play against major league players.

Toronto-based Arrivals + Departures handled branding, logo and jersey designs. 

“The WPBL leadership had a clear vision from the outset to honor the women who helped shape the history of the game,” said CCO Jeff MacEachern. “They weren’t interested in creating just another set of sports brands, but rather a league that stands for something bigger. We didn’t put portraits on the caps; we extracted their core attributes — resilience, fire, precision and royalty — and channeled those abstract concepts into fierce, modern, competitive brand marks.”

The WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach a men’s professional baseball team and the first woman to throw batting practice to an MLB team. Siegal serves as the league’s first commissioner, while Keith Stein, a lawyer/entrepreneur, oversees operational concerns.

A+D’s creative work also includes EQ Bank, The Beer Store, Paramount+ and Metro.