Watch highlights from the Past, Present, and Future Panel at 2026 SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference
At the eighth annual SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference on Saturday, October 10, 2026, the Past, Present, and Future Panel was held with Shae Sloan, former Colorado Silver Bullets player; Emma Charlesworth-Seiler, former professional umpire and Women’s Professional Baseball League coach; and Sarah Camarillo, Baseball For All and high school baseball player. The panel was moderated by longtime ESPN Radio host and public address announcer C.J. Silas.
Sloan, from the Houston area, grew up playing all sports, including volleyball, basketball, and baseball. She started playing baseball with boys at the age of 10. She was a four-year letter winner on her high school boys baseball team. She attended the University of Nebraska, where she played shortstop for the softball team, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree. She went on to try out and make the Colorado Silver Bullets pro baseball team, where she played from 1994 to 1997. After she retired from playing baseball, she pursued a career in orthopedic surgery as a physician assistant and has been working as a lead orthopedic physician assistant in sports medicine for 18 years. She is the author of Graftology, published in 2021 and sold across the world to surgical teams. She also works as a broadcaster for ESPN+, calling college softball and baseball games. She recently was a volunteer coach at the Baseball For All nationals in Rockford, Illinois.
Charlesworth-Seiler is a baseball coach, former player, ex-professional umpire, and advocate for girls and women in baseball. She founded the Minnesota Girls Baseball Association in 2014 and has been developing programs and pathways for girls in Minnesota, in partnership with the Minnesota Twins youth programs, for more than 10 years. She was the first woman to play in the Twin Cities Men’s Adult Baseball League in 2016. That same year, she traveled to Sydney, Australia to play baseball. In 2017, she became the eighth woman hired to umpire in affiliated Minor League Baseball. Emma umpired four seasons of professional baseball. She also served as an instructor at the Minor League Baseball Umpire Academy and MLB Umpire Camps, helping develop the next generation of baseball officials. She has coached youth, high school, and adult baseball players on the local, national, and international levels. In 2026, she coached in the Women’s Pro Baseball League for the Los Angeles Queens, helping them to a championship in the inaugural season.
Camarillo was born in Texas and raised all over the world, living in Germany for three years and visiting 20 countries by the age of 7. These experiences shaped Sarah’s perspective of the world and her desire to make a difference for those less fortunate. Having decided early on that softball was not for her, Sarah worked hard to earn her spot on the diamond with Texas boys. In 2025, she attended the Maria Pepe Legacy Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania; played for the Texas Lonestars at Baseball For All Nationals in Reno, Nevada; and pitched the Upstate Girls Baseball team to a second-place finish at the Leighton Accardo Invitational in Arizona. She played for Denae Benites and Beth Greenwood in December, forging lasting bonds with the future WPBL stars.
- Video: Click here to watch a replay of the 2026 Past, Present, Future Panel (YouTube)
On making the Colorado Silver Bullets team
- Sloan: “I remember being at our hotel in Orlando. All the coaches walked in and were wearing tuxedos and they said, ‘Everybody in this room has made the Colorado Silver Bullets for the very first team.’ And that was a very special moment, something I won’t ever forget.”
On growing up and playing baseball
- Sloan: “I was given the opportunity to play with the guys in my neighborhood, they allowed me to play in the pickup games. Those same guys I mentioned were the ones on the high school baseball team and then it was Coach Weldon who said, ‘Yeah, let’s give her a shot.’ ”
On accepting a coaching position in the WPBL
- Charlesworth-Seiler: I love being around building girls and women’s baseball. So I accepted the (coaching) position and I was like, ‘We’ll have to make this work.’ It was something that younger me would have been so excited about and something that this-age me was (also) very excited about.”
On her familiarity with other WPBL players
- Charlesworth-Seiler: “It’s been so fun to see some of them grow, Maggie Fox is on my team (Los Angeles Queens) and I’ve known her since she was like 12. It’s just so fun to see their development, both as a player and a person. There were quite a few players on all the teams that I knew from over the years and so I think that made it more special for me personally.”
On the expansion of women’s baseball over the years
- Camarillo: “I loved seeing that girls baseball had expanded this much, since I’ve learned about it. It’s been so much fun getting to know everyone and seeing everything happen in the girls baseball world.”
On recruiting girls to play baseball
- Camarillo: I’ve found a couple of girls that play with us now by just walking around some of the tournaments that I go to with our guys locally. And then we have a (minor league) team down here, the San Antonio Missions, and I met a girl or two there — other girls playing baseball.”
Transcription assistance by Morgan Tremmel.
For more coverage of the 2026 SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference, visit SABR.org/women-in-baseball-conference/2026-highlights.
Originally published: October 18, 2026. Last Updated: October 22, 2026.