MEXICO CITY – In many parts of Latin America, baseball is a popular and well-established sport with men’s professional leagues in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, among others. But women wanting to play baseball’s cousin – softball – professionally had only one option: to leave.

Until now.

In what is believed to be a first in Latin America, a professional women’s softball league has started in Mexico. On Jan 25, when the inaugural season began, 120 women on six teams got to call themselves professional softball players, many for the first time.

“Before, there wasn’t even a question of, ‘Should there be a professional sport for women?’ It was a given that it didn’t exist. Period,” said Stefania Aradillas, an outfielder for the Diablos Rojos Femenil of Mexico City. “But we’re finding our place in society, not just in sports, but in all areas.”

The women’s softball venture was created by the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, the country’s nearly 100-year-old professional men’s baseball league. The regular season lasts until March 3, followed by play-offs ending in mid-March.

Although it is a short season, officials and players have said it has already shown some promise: 13,408 people filled the Monterrey stadium on opening night, a record for a softball game in the Americas, and the half-dozen teams drew a total of 109,000 fans through the first four weeks.

Horacio de la Vega, president of the Mexican men’s professional baseball league, first raised the idea for a women’s baseball or softball division during a league meeting in 2021.

“This is something that we should’ve done some time ago,” de la Vega said, “but things happen for a reason and at the right moment.”

Officials settled on softball because of its growing popularity and an encouraging future in Mexico (the national team finished fourth in its first Olympic appearance at the 2021 Tokyo Games). With baseball stadiums largely unused during its off-season, a softball league could bring in extra money.

The strategy for establishing a softball league took a leaf from the launch of women’s professional football in Mexico in 2017, which involved the men’s franchises starting a women’s team of the same name.

At first, de la Vega said, nearly half of the men’s baseball franchises (there were 18 then, 20 as of 2024) showed interest in starting a women’s softball team. After requiring an initial three-year commitment from interested owners, the league whittled it down to six clubs: one each in three of the country’s biggest cities – Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey – plus in Leon, Tabasco and Veracruz.

And most of the teams have female leadership: Five of the six managers are women, as are three of the general managers.

While the majority of the league’s players are from Mexico, there are also some Mexican Americans, Cubans, Venezuelans and one Colombian.

Dafne Bravo, 22, a catcher for the Mexico City team, was working at a Star Wars ride at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, when she heard about the new league.

She was granted two months’ unpaid leave from Disneyland to play in Mexico, where she earns roughly US$3,000 (S$4,034) a month.

“I’m representing my family, just making them proud,” said Bravo, whose parents were born in Mexico and emigrated to the United States. NYTIMES