Stephanie Everett is excited by the launch of the Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL), which begins play on August 1. She attended last year’s tryouts and was drafted by Boston, but is not currently on the official roster. Everett grew up playing baseball, putting it aside at age 18, switching to soccer while at Dartmouth College, and then temporarily stopping sports due to concussions.
“I have an older brother, and I started playing all the sports that he did, which included baseball,” said Everett, who has called New York City home since graduating from Dartmouth in 2019. She spent three years in Harlem before migrating downtown to the East Village with her partner. “I was one of the girls who was lucky enough to have never been forced to switch to softball. I grew up [in Silver Spring, Maryland] with the same group of kids, and we played on travel teams together.”
The WBPL is beginning with four teams — Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York — but the inaugural season will be played in Springfield, Illinois. In 2024, a friend sent Everett information about plans for the WPBL. At first, she thought she’d just be a fan. “The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t let it go,” she said. “This is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
It is possible that Everett will be called up sometime this WPBL season. She’s currently recovering from a shoulder injury, so her training at Brooklyn Sluggers is mixed with rehab. She’s also played with the East Coast Yankees, an all-women’s tournament team. Due to past concussions, she has switched from catcher to outfielder.
Everett describes herself as a multi-hyphenate: she’s an actor, athlete, speaker, photographer, and website developer. Her athletic and acting chops came together in 2023 when she was an understudy for the play “Flex” at the Lincoln Center Theater, which centered on a girls’ high school basketball team. She came to the cast’s first rehearsal wearing a New York Liberty jersey. Going forward, she’d love to portray an athlete on film or a TV show.
“It’s exciting to me to think that there could be a little Black girl out there somewhere who could see me on stage or on the field and think, ‘That’s possible,’” said Everett. “It’s exciting to be part of this next wave, picking up the mantle of what all the women before us did.”
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