Sue Parsons Zipay founded American Girls Baseball, an affiliate organization of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) Players Association, intending to create a professional women's baseball league in the United States.
Zipay, now 86, played in the final two seasons (1953, 1954) of the AAGPBL, the women's professional league that inspired the film A League of Their Own.
The former ballplayer, who is a native of Massachusetts and currently resides in Englewood, Florida, thinks a new women's baseball league in the US could launch as soon as 2021.
American Girls Baseball is sending out a survey to women's baseball players in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Venezuela and Japan, in order to measure overall interest in the project.
Zipay envisions a Fall or Winter League using Major League Baseball spring training venues, which are mostly dormant in October, November and December.
"I’d like to see it gain a good, strong foothold before I go to the big diamond in the sky," Zipay said. "That motivates me."
Zipays says retired citizens who move to Florida are a prime audience for a new women's baseball league.
Japan is currently the only country that features a women's professional baseball league, and the country has won the last six WBSC Women's Baseball World Cups and is No. 1 in the WBSC Women Baseball World Rankings.
The US is currently ranked fifth in the world in women's baseball.
Related article: The future of Women's Baseball
