New women's baseball league names 97-year-old AAGPBL alum honorary chair on advisory board

Former baseball pitcher Maybelle Blair will be an honorary chair on the advisory board of the Women's Professional Baseball League, which last month announced plans to launch in 2026 as a six-team circuit for female players.

The 97-year-old Blair, who helped inspire the baseball film “A League of Their Own” with her play in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, will chair a board of women who have worked in sports and business. The list includes a leader from the upstart Professional Women's Hockey League, a longtime ESPN executive, and baseball pitcher and six-time World Cup winner Ayami Sato.

“We have been waiting 70 years for a women’s professional baseball league,” Blair said in a release from the WPBL, "and it means so much for the girls. It is going to be our great opportunity and we must take advantage of it now.”

The WPBL aspires to be the first pro league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League dissolved in 1954. Co-founders Justine Siegal, who is the first woman to coach for an MLB team, and Keith Stein, a lawyer and businessman, both said the league's goal is to establish a solid women's baseball culture in the U.S.

In preparation for its first season, the league will hold a scouting camp in spring 2025, followed by a player draft later in the year. The league plans to play a regular season, playoffs and championship in the summer of 2026.

Blair plans to throw the first pitch in the WPBL opener.

“I have so much respect for Maybelle and all of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players,” Siegal said in a release. “The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League set a precedent on what’s possible in women’s professional baseball.

"It is important to me, and the WPBL, that we honor the legacy and impact of their League while building a new future for today’s players who dream of playing professional baseball.”

The rest of the board includes Nona Lee (former Arizona Diamondbacks chief legal officer), Laura Gentile (former ESPN CMO and founder of espnW), Kate Childs Graham (speechwriter/communications strategist), Dr. Kat Williams (Founder/CEO of International Women's Baseball Center), Dr. Leslie Heaphy (chair of Society of American Baseball Research's (SABR) Women in Baseball Committee) and Digit Murphy (President of Toronto Six hockey team).

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FILE - Former All American Girls Professional Baseball player Maybelle Blair before a baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Washington Nationals, on July 24, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian authorities said Wednesday they have opened a fraud investigation into the former European Union justice chief, just days after his mandate ended.

An Schoonjans, a spokesperson for the Brussels prosecutor general’s office, told The Associated Press that an investigation was opened on former EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders in relation to “possible money laundering practices.” She said house searches were conducted as part of the probe.

The move comes only days after Reynders, who had held the justice chief job since 2019, ended his term over the weekend. Schoonjans declined to elaborate on media reports by Le Soir and Follow the Money that the probe was linked to money laundering through the national lottery.

Reynders' EU party Renew said in a statement it would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Any scandal involving Reynders would rub off on the European Commission, where he was responsible for making sure that Western rule of law principles, including a rigorous fight against corruption, would be scrupulously respected during his term.

FILE - European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders delivers a speech on the electoral law, the investigative committee and the rule of law in Poland, Wednesday, June 14, 2023 at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)