WPSL'S PLAN DUBIOUS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN NECESSARY

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

Things were so optimistic for the founders and players of Women's Pro Fastpitch, which eventually became the Women's Professional Softball League.

There were committed players, a national sponsor in AT&T Wireless, and an original concept: base the teams in areas that had abandoned minor-league stadiums during the building boom of the 1990s.

The original Blaze vs. Storm barnstorming teams were quite the traveling show. All they had to do was to go to one of the old ballparks (such as could be found in places like Erie, Pa., Durham, N.C., Hampton, Va., and Albanie-Colonie, N.Y.), and set up shop. Set the bases at 60 feet, put up a breakaway fence 200 feet away from home place, nail down a temporary pitching rubber at the foot of the old pitching mound (roughly 48 feet away), and you had a game.

The WPF drummed up interest by traveling to schools and having autograph sessions at the local mall. It was a great no-muss-no-fuss formula.

The scene, however, changed by the time the first WPF season got underway in 1997. Originally, there were to be three Midwestern teams and three Mid-Atlantic teams. But after the U.S. softball team won gold in Atlanta, the entire league shifted to Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Too, the rules on stadia were changed. No longer could a grass infield be part of the league; mounds were removed and a sandlot constructed where a baseball infield once stood.

The formula seemed to work for a while. Six teams would play four-game series late in the week and on weekends, allowing players to get steady jobs in the cities in which they were located.

Old ballparks (for example, the old homes of the Peninsula Pilots and Durham Bulls) were retrofitted for softball. Television got involved, with ESPN2 carring a game every week for a time.

Even with a name change (to the WPSL), the league became a minor hit in several markets. Supporters' groups formed, and teams grew close to their communities.

However, there were some elements missing. Few of the gold-medal heroines from Atlanta went to the league. No Dr. Dot, no Michele Smith, no Lisa Fernandez.

Still, people came to see the games, despite the shifting of four out of the original six teams to either the Midwest or to to that nether area of sport called "hiatus." And, in 2000, the WPSL was credited for developing several members of the U.S. team that repeated its gold medal performance of four years earlier.

It should have been a boost to the professional game in the United States. But it wasn't.

Instead, the WPSL decided to take a hiatus in 2001 from league play. About two dozen games are scheduled to take place in the summer of 2001, pitting a WPSL all-star team against a group of U.S. and international players.

One big reason is sponsorship. The league lost AT&T, and is now relying on the Bank of America and a group of equipment manufacturers to pay the bills.

The league has announced its intention to be in as many as 12 cities by 2004, though only the two venues for 1999 -- Akron, Ohio and Plant City, Fla., are considered definites.

As the league gets to work on the field in 2001, it is hoped that the league is equally busy in its off-the-field works. The game of softball deserves as much.