SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Isabella Villareal practiced with the Los Angeles Queens for the first time on Saturday morning, hours before the team’s first game.
She ended up being in the center of the most important moment in the first game of the Women’s Pro Baseball League’s history.
Villareal hit a pinch-hit double with two outs in the top of the seventh to give the Queens a 10-8 lead they’d hold onto to clinch the first WPBL victory.
“The adrenaline was pumping, but I was also nervous,” Villareal said. “But I’m so stoked that I got to go in. I blacked out, I don’t even know what I was thinking, I’m just glad I got to prove myself.”
The Los Angeles Queens’ Ashton Lansdell, left, and Meggie Meidlinger celebrate after beating the New York Heights during the Women’s Pro Baseball League debut game on Saturday in Springfield, Ill.
(Jessie Alcheh / Getty Images)
Second baseman Amira Hondras, coming off a strong women’s baseball World Cup debut last week, tied the game in the at-bat prior with a single up the middle to set up Villareal’s heroics.
“I told her, ‘This is your moment,’ and walked away,” Queens manager Eric Young said of Villareal. “And she went and got the big hit even though she just joined us today. You never know who is going to do it, because everyone is going to play.”
The Queens trailed 7-2 in the second inning but slowly chipped away. Maggie Foxx, whose two-run single in the first inning was the first hit in league history, went 2-for-2 with two runs, a walk and a stolen base and pitched two innings while giving up one run.
Villareal, who turned 20 just two days prior, didn’t know she would play at all on Saturday. Young decided to pinch hit her for designated hitter Thaima Maximiliana despite having never seen her hit in person.
“I was standing next to [Young] before he told Bella she was going to hit and she was in shock,” said Mo’ne Davis (0-for-4, one run). “But you know, she stayed calm the whole time, and everyone was just so supportive throughout the entire game.”
The first WPBL game was delayed 90 minutes by rainy conditions that went on to affect that seventh inning, when Michelle Roche popped up to right field and New York’s Natsuki Yonetani lost the ball in the wind.
Davis, who played center field all night, said the conditions made it difficult to field cleanly.
“We just relied on each other,” she said. “We were all just talking on every single pitch. The last inning was very, very tough. We were getting directions from our coaches and we could not see. But you know we’ll talk over that during practice. But we were just just making sure we had each other’s back, you know, putting each other in the right position, and communication is key.”
Former All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player Maybelle Blair, left, and Los Angeles Queens’ Elodie O’Sullivan, right, talk before the inaugural Women’s Professional Baseball League game Saturday in Springfield, Ill.
(Lexie Knight / Associated Press)
Fans wrapped around the concourse and emptied the merchandise stand before the delayed first pitch and witnessed a torch passing between the league’s current players and past women’s baseball legends.
One of those legends, 99-year-old Maybelle Blair, threw the ceremonial first pitch to San Francisco pitcher Kelsie Whitmore.
“Kelsie was very emotional, and I just went over there and gave her a hug, and I know how much this means to her, and then also Maybellel Blair,” Davis said. “I went up to her. She’s the same person she has always been. Just super high energy. I told her to throw a strike, and she was like, ‘You know I will throw a strike.’ She gave me that sass.”
Foxx is also 20 years old and is listed as a catcher but played in the outfield and pitched on Saturday. New York manager Rocky Henley noted that most players are going to have to play multiple positions, including pitch, because teams have just 15-player rosters.
Foxx, Maximiliana, Hondras and Villareal make up a young core around stars like Davis and Ashton Lansdell that make the Queens, one of the favorites to win the league.
The bats coming alive late on Saturday were a good sign of that.
“This is something that we’ve all been working towards, culminating this event, and it feels like it kind of feels like another baseball game, but it feels like something that we’ve been putting in the work for for 70 years now,” Foxx said.
The Queens won’t play again until Wednesday when they take on the Boston Hunters.
“When I walked on the field I started crying because of how much this moment meant, and how much it meant to everybody,” Foxx said. “It means everything to us.”