It’s baseball’s hot stove season. For the first time in decades, that includes women going pro.
Boston is one of four cities with a team for the Women’s Professional Baseball League’s inaugural season in 2026. A couple of weeks ago, the city’s unnamed club selected Beth Greenwood of New Hampshire in the first-ever WPBL draft. Out of the 30 draft picks, Greenwood still has to make the roster for the starting 15 which will be announced in the new year.
Greenwood joined WBUR’s Morning Edition to share her road to the big leagues.
Highlights from this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Interview highlights
On falling in love with the game:
“ I remember the first time I was really trying to learn how to play catch in the backyard. My dad was a lefty, so he was convinced that I had to be a lefty. I had a lefty glove and everyone thought I stunk because I’m a righty. So we quickly learned that I, you know, was throwing with the wrong hand.”
On the dream of playing professional baseball:
“Especially when I was really little, we all dreamed of playing in the MLB. … You don’t realize how the world’s built. You just play this sport that you love and you say, ‘I want to be the best.’
“And I think the older you get and the more you’re the only one playing in your leagues, or you’re the only one, even in middle school or high school, you start to realize that might not be an opportunity. And I think you start trying to figure out what’s next and because there wasn’t a Women’s Professional League that’s the national team … so that kind of became my focus.
“But you know, like any other kid, when I was 12, I just dreamed of playing in major league stadiums and being able to compete at the highest level. So the fact that that’s now not just this dream that had to shift, it’s now an actual, like, reality is amazing.”
On how she’ll balance playing with her full-time job as a coach at Vassar College:
“Obviously the dream is someday that this could be a hundred percent the full-time job. But especially because the league’s also only going to be just about two months … we all have to have the rest of our lives, right? And so that looks different for all of us. And so for me, that looks like still continuing to coach outside of my playing schedule. But that’s also not something new to a lot of us … we are all used to having to have very high level training and still pay the bills.”
On the importance of this moment:
“We should be super excited about the opportunity. I think that just recognizing this is where we’re starting, this isn’t where we’re finishing, I think is super important. Sometimes it’s just getting started and then we’re going to figure out the rest. We’ll start to get more of the support that we need and the funding. And, you know, you start to figure out the other pieces a little bit more for any new women’s professional sports league. But I think it’s kind of that analysis paralysis. If we ran around too long, we’re never going to get going.
“I felt like growing up, all the time it was always all eyes on you. And if you failed, women just stink at baseball. And so I think for the first time, just being able to play baseball and just worry about that is going to be amazing.”
This segment aired on December 2, 2025.
