Watch highlights from the WPBL Players Panel at 2026 SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference
At the eighth annual SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference on Saturday, October 10, 2026, a panel discussion was held with Women’s Professional Baseball League players. Panelists included Brittany Apgar of the Los Angeles Queens, along with Elizabeth Greenwood and Paloma Benach of the Boston Hunters. The panel was moderated by Lorene Kennard.
Brittany Apgar, of Greensboro, North Carolina, was born with a limb difference and began playing baseball as soon as she could walk. Baseball has been her game from day one, even when others steered her toward softball. That determination has taken her far. Apgar made history competing on an all-girls team that won the Boys of Summer Tournament. She was then selected in the third round, 15th overall, by the LA Queens in the draft for the inaugural 2026 season of the WPBL. Apgar credits MLB pitcher Jim Abbott with setting the bar. “Watching what he did in the game taught me that limits are usually just other people’s opinions,” she says. Off the field, Apgar is working to become a louder voice for adaptive athletes, youth, and underrepresented communities. As a Move United Brand Ambassador, she hopes to help more people believe in what’s possible. She believes representation shouldn’t be a rare sighting. It should be the norm.
Beth Greenwood is a catcher in the Women’s Professional Baseball League for the Boston Hunters and also the first Player/Coach in the WPBL. She previously played for Team USA in the 2024 World Cup, earning a Silver Medal. She also played NCAA DIII baseball at the University of Rochester and was the first American woman to play catcher in college baseball history. Outside of playing, her work experience includes four years of professional and collegiate coaching for the Philadelphia Phillies Organization and Vassar College. Currently, she is working for Baseball For All as the Director of Baseball Development.
Paloma Benach has played baseball all her life. Benach grew up watching the New York Yankees with her parents and started playing baseball at summer camps when she was five years old. She has played for D.C. Girls baseball for three seasons and also on the Woodrow Wilson high school baseball team. Benach joined the men’s baseball team at Occidental College before being drafted and signed to play in the WPBL inaugural season for the Boston Hunters.
- Video: Click here to watch a replay of the 2026 WPBL Players Panel (YouTube)
On first impressions of the WPBL
- Benach: “I think I remember just feeling like the whole area was just kind of buzzing. Everyone was so excited. There were so many women trying out and … I remember getting to the field and … it felt like the entire stadium was vibrating. They were like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ ”
On being drafted by the Los Angeles Queens
- Apgar: “I was in my best friend’s apartment. We had a little apartment party. My parents (and) my closest friends were there, the people who helped me get in shape for these tryouts. … We were streaming (the draft) on absolutely everything you could stream it on. … My friends took my phone away because I started freaking out. … Hearing people’s names get called that I got to try out with, I was just in awe. These are my friends and they finally saw their dreams come true. And then the third round came and it was my turn to be picked. At first we had the captions on the TV, so it said Brittany and it was spelled wrong. … I didn’t think it was me, but then I heard Brittany Apgar. I just remember I looked around the room first, and I saw my mom. She immediately started crying. My dad was jumping up for joy. And my best friends were all trying to hug me at the same time. I was like, ‘This is what men get to feel like when they make a draft.’ “
On daily life as a professional ballplayer
- Greenwood: “I think this looked very different for every single player depending on the situation you were coming from. I had to quit my job to come and play in the league, so for the first half of the season I was just solely focused on playing. And then as we got back toward the later end of the season, I had started my role with Baseball For All, so I was doing a little bit with them in our downtime. And then also I started grad school. So it truly was, I think, a different experience, because you had players like Meggie (Meidlinger of the Los Angeles Queens) who is literally an architect. She’s a full-time architect and also training.”
- Benach: “I remember early in the season, we had a night where all of the Koreans had gone to a Korean supermarket, an hour and a half outside of Springfield on an off day. (They) came back and brought a bunch of Korean food, and they cooked it all for us. And then we were like, ‘Well, how do we give them some form of American culture on top of that?’ So we did s’mores, and they loved s’mores. We would cook s’mores by the fire pit at our hotel. So just finding different ways to connect with everyone in a way that you were learning about them, they were learning about you, and it felt very fluid, was really incredible.”
On game preparation and making adjustments
- Greenwood: “It was more looking at the pitchers I was gonna be facing that day, what do they do, how do they try to attack hitters? Not trying to change my plan too much, trying to continue to do what I do well, and not trying to change who I am just because I’m facing someone else on that given day. Knowing what they’re gonna attack me with. And (on defense), I look at scouting reports on my pitchers before games just for pitch-calling purposes and opposing hitters, what kind of works, what’s a good matchup, I’m trying to do all of that.”
On training differently for baseball and softball
- Apgar: “I think being an athlete is being an athlete, through and through. Any type of conditioning you can do to make yourself feel comfortable in that box, because baseball’s not always a game of strength and it’s not always a game of speed. It’s a game of what you have up here [points to head]. To train for it, you have to train your body and your mind. I’ve always found that pushing myself very hard in whatever sport I’m playing or participating in, is the way I need to train. For (WPBL) tryouts, I had one of my best friends, he’s a college wrestler, and he got me in shape for baseball. … What better sport of strength and endurance is there besides wrestling? Your fingertips are conditioned, man.”
On her slogan and merch line Protect the Nub:
- Apgar: “I want to turn this into a visibility statement as well, because one in four Americans live with a disability, whether that be mental, physical, or invisible. I think every single one of those are incredibly important, and I’m fortunate enough that my disability is physical so you can see it. And with that, I know I’m tasked with speaking for people with invisible or mental (disabilities), or people who are too shy to talk about it themselves. As a teenager, I was a lot different of a person. I was very shy and insecure about my disability, because I just wanted to fit in so, so badly. And now as an adult, I realize this is me fitting in by being different. Every single person is different. That’s what makes them cool.”
Transcription assistance by Brady Capps.
For more coverage of the 2026 SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference, visit SABR.org/women-in-baseball-conference/2026-highlights.
Originally published: October 19, 2026. Last Updated: October 15, 2026.