Boston’s pro women’s baseball team, set to begin play in August, has a name

Boston’s newest pro women’s sports team has a name: Meet the Boston Hunters.

The Women’s Pro Baseball League, which will open its debut season on Aug. 1, on Wednesday announced the brand identities of its inaugural four teams: the Boston Hunters, New York Heights, San Francisco Firebells, and Los Angeles Queens.

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Each team is named after a trailblazing woman. For Boston, it’s Harriot K. Hunt, the first woman to apply to Harvard Medical School and establish a successful medical practice in the United States.

“The WPBL stands on the shoulders of these incredible women who fought for their place in history and on the diamond long before us,” WPBL commissioner Justine Siegal said in a release. “These names are not just symbols, they represent the grit, audacity, and excellence that our athletes will bring to the field this August.”

Boston’s logo features an osprey holding a baseball bat, which a league release said is meant to represent “precision, instinct, and action.”

“Inspired by Boston’s culture of resilience, toughness and relentless drive, the Hunters identity reflects a city built on grit and determination,” the release said.

The WPBL season will run through the second half of September. All games will be played at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. Each team will play each other five times for a total of 15 games per team over the seven-week season.

Boston’s season opens Aug. 2 against the San Francisco Firebells, a name inspired by Lillie Hitchcock Coit. Coit, a champion of San Francisco’s volunteer firefighters and benefactor of the Coit Tower, was known as “Firebelle.”

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The New York Heights are named for Dorothy Irene Height, a civil rights and women’s rights leader from New York.

The Los Angeles Queens are named for Lizzie Murphy, nicknamed the “Queen of the Diamond,” who was the first woman to play against MLB players when she appeared on an all-star team that faced off against the Red Sox in 1922. Murphy’s team beat the Sox, 3-2.

“Today marks a historic milestone for professional baseball, and all of women’s professional sports, as we introduce four team identities that honor the legacies of specific women who chose to forge new paths for themselves and generations of women who followed,” Siegal said in the release.

The league is the first founded for women in North America since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (of “A League of Their Own” fame) folded in 1954.

While the NCAA doesn’t offer women’s baseball, and no states sponsor high school girls’ baseball, the United States has a national team run through USA Baseball. It competes in the Women’s World Cup and won the first two titles in 2004 and 2006. The US finished second in 2024 behind Japan, which has won seven straight titles.

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