The Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) opened its season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, on Aug. 1 with a game between the New York Heights and Los Angeles Queens. The matchup carried historic significance as the first game of the WPBL, revived after 72 years. At the top of the first inning, a short-haired pitcher in the Heights’ pinstriped uniform confidently took the mound. It was Kim Ra-kyung, 26, who made history as the first female player to hit a home run in the Korean Little League baseball and, in the same year, became the youngest player ever selected for Korea’s women’s national baseball team at age 15. Kim is not the only Korean competing at the highest level of women’s baseball. Catcher Hyeonah Kim, 26, joined the Boston Hunters, while infielder Jua Park, 22, made the San Francisco Firebells. Their success, however, is hardly evidence of a strong development system for women’s baseball in Korea. Players such as Kim Ra-kyung are outliers who have reached the world stage through extraordinary talent and effort despite the lack of a meaningful path