Women’s Pro Baseball League to hold tryouts at Nationals Park as it aims for 2026 debut

The Women’s Professional Baseball League will hold tryouts next month at the Washington Nationals’ home ballpark as it moves closer to its launch.

The league is aiming to play its first season with six teams starting in spring 2026. The tryouts, which will be held Aug. 22-25, will determine the 150 players who will be invited to the league’s draft in October.

More than 600 players registered for the four-day camp, the WPBL said. The first three days will include drill-focused sessions, athletic performance testing and player evaluations at the Nationals’ Youth Baseball Academy before an initial round of cuts. Players will then compete in a live game at Nationals Park on Aug. 25, after which the final cuts will happen.

Team USA women’s baseball star Alex Hugo, who is a special adviser to the league, will lead the tryouts.

“We are really excited to see all of the players at tryouts this summer and see their incredible skills,” Hugo said in a statement. “We’re building a future where girls and women who love baseball can dream as big as they want and now, finally, have a league to call their own.”

The WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, who is the first woman to coach for an MLB team. When it debuts, it will be the first pro league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — the one immortalized in “A League of Their Own” — dissolved in 1954.

As it nears its launch, the WPBL has already struck a media deal with Fremantle, the production company behind shows like “The Price Is Right” and “Family Feud,” as well as brought in global women’s sports investor Assia Grazioli-Venier as its chair.