American Women's Baseball Federation (AWBF) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit amateur sports organization formed to organize and promote baseball as a mainstream and lifetime opportunity for women.
The AWBF was founded to help women's baseball teams around the country network through its website and the tournaments it has organized. The AWBF is an assumed name for the American Women's Baseball League. Its National Championship Tournament is hosted in Huntingburg, Indiana and featured Donna Mills in 2009. [1] Julie Croteau and her former Colorado Silver Bullets teammates have also been affiliated with the organization. [2]
Since 1992 [3] the AWBF has organized 17 regional and national tournaments. With international partner Women's Baseball Association of Japan (WBAJ) it organized the first four Women's World Series events. [4] National teams met in Canada (2001), United States (2002), Australia (2003), and Japan (2004) to play for international bragging rights. The Women's World Series events were the precursors to the Women's World Cup of Baseball. The Women's World Cup of Baseball started in 2004 in Edmonton and involved most of the same teams that participated in the 2004 Women's World Series. The Women's World Cup of Baseball is now the top elite women's baseball tournament in the world. The Women's World Series is no longer played.
The AWBF now keeps a database of players interested in trying out for the USA Baseball women's national team. Interested players are directed to tryout sites and their names are sent to USA Baseball which holds tryouts and select a women's national team each year.
Jim Glennie is the Founder of the AWBF and served as Director of Player Identification for the USA Baseball Women's National Team and started the foundation after his daughter started playing baseball. [5]
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.
Sports in Japan are a significant part of Japanese culture. Both traditional sports such as sumo and martial arts, and Western imports like baseball, association football, basketball and tennis are popular with both participants and spectators.
Mariel Margaret Hamm-Garciaparra is an American former professional soccer player, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion. Hailed as a soccer icon, she played as a forward for the United States women's national soccer team from 1987 to 2004. Hamm was the face of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), the first professional women's soccer league in the United States, where she played for the Washington Freedom from 2001 to 2003. She played college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer team and helped the team win four NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship titles.
The history of baseball can be broken down into various aspects: by era, by locale, by organizational-type, game evolution, as well as by political and cultural influence. The game evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Football is among the most popular sports in Japan, together with baseball, basketball, sumo and martial arts. Its nationwide organization, the Japan Football Association, administers the professional football leagues, including J.League, which is considered by many the most successful football league in Asia.
USA Baseball is the national governing body for organized baseball in the United States, and is a member of the United States Olympic Committee and the World Baseball Softball Confederation. The organization selects and trains the World Baseball Classic, Olympic, Premier12, and Pan American Games teams ; the USA Baseball collegiate national team; the USA Baseball 18U, 15U, and 12U national teams; and the USA Baseball women's national team, all of which participate in various international competitions each year. In addition, USA Baseball selects players for the 14U, 16U, and 17U national team-development programs. The organization is responsible for the continued proliferation and health of the sport, and leads a number of amateur initiatives through its Sport Development department, including Play Ball and Pitch Smart. USA Baseball also presents the Golden Spikes Award annually to the top amateur baseball player in the country and is responsible for creating the USABat standard.
Professional baseball leagues, amateur-baseball organizations, sportswriting associations, and other groups confer awards on various baseball teams, players, managers, coaches, executives, broadcasters, writers, and other baseball-related people for excellence in achievement, sportsmanship, and community involvement.
Sports in Canada consist of a wide variety of games. The roots of organized sports in Canada date back to the 1770s, culminating in the development and popularization of the major professional games of ice hockey, lacrosse, basketball, baseball, soccer, football and cricket. Canada's official national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse. Golf, baseball, tennis, skiing, ringette, badminton, cricket, volleyball, cycling, swimming, bowling, rugby union, canoeing, equestrian, squash, and the study of martial arts are widely enjoyed at the youth and amateur levels. Great achievements in Canadian sports are recognized by Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, while the Lou Marsh Trophy is awarded annually to Canada's top athlete by a panel of journalists. There are numerous other Sports Halls of Fame in Canada.
Sports are an important part of culture in the United States. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century. These sports comprise the "Big Five". In the first half of the 20th century, boxing and collegiate football were among the most popular sports after baseball. Golf, tennis, and collegiate basketball are other spectator sports with longstanding popularity. Most recently, Mixed martial arts, has been breaking records in attendance and broadcast viewership for all combat sports.
The Japan women's national football team, or nicknamed Nadeshiko Japan (なでしこジャパン), represents Japan in women's association football and is run by the Japan Football Association (JFA). It is the most successful women's national team from the Asian Football Confederation. Its highest ranking in the FIFA Women's World Rankings is 3rd, achieved in December 2011.
Christie Patricia Pearce is an American former professional soccer player who played as a defender. She is the former captain of the United States national team. Pearce is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and also a two-time world champion in FIFA Women's World Cup.
The United States national baseball team represents the United States in international-level baseball competitions. The team is currently ranked 3rd in the world by the World Baseball Softball Confederation. The United States has won many international tournaments, many which are now discontinued. Most notably the team has won the Olympic baseball tournament in 2000, and the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in 2017.
Women's baseball is played in several countries. The strongest and most organized women's baseball leagues are in the United States, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Hong Kong, and Canada. Those countries have national governing bodies that support girls' and women's baseball programs. Other countries/regions that currently have organized women's baseball are Germany, France, Netherlands, Croatia, India, South Korea, Venezuela, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, and Pakistan. There also is a handful of women playing baseball in Vietnam currently on the Fishanu team at Hanoi University and on the Hanoi Baseball Club.
Carli Anne Hollins is an American former professional soccer player. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year, and a four-time Olympian. Lloyd scored the gold medal-winning goals in the finals of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. Lloyd also helped the United States win their titles at the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cups, the bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, and she played for the team at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup where the U.S. finished in second place. After the 2020 Summer Olympics, Lloyd announced she would be retiring from the national team following four final friendly matches in 2021. Lloyd has made 316 appearances for the U.S. national team, placing her second in caps, and has the fourth-most goals and fifth-most assists for the team. In March 2021, she was named as the highest paid female soccer player in the world. She played her last international match with the USWNT on October 26, 2021, shortly before retiring from professional soccer at the completion of the 2021 NJ/NY Gotham FC season.
Association football is the most popular sport in almost all Asian countries. Cricket is the second most popular sport in Asia, and is most popular in South Asia. Other popular sports in Asia include baseball, basketball, badminton and table tennis among others. There are also some traditional sports that are popular in certain regions of Asia, such as the traditional South Asian sports of kabaddi and kho-kho. Top sporting nations/regions in Asia include China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Cricket in the United States is a sport played at the amateur, club, intercollegiate and international competition levels with little popularity, with 200,000 players across the country. Minor League Cricket is the highest level of domestic T20 cricket currently played in America, with T20 being the format of the game that much of the recent growth in American cricket is occurring in.
Rebecca Elizabeth Sauerbrunn is an American professional soccer player for Portland Thorns FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the highest division of women's professional soccer in the United States. Since 2021, Sauerbrunn is the captain of the United States women's national soccer team. She previously captained Utah Royals FC and, from 2016 to 2018, co-captained the national team with Carli Lloyd.
The Women's Baseball World Series was an international tournament in which originally national women's baseball teams from around the world competed, before being overtaken by the Women's Baseball World Cup in 2004. It was sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation.
The history of soccer in the United States has numerous different roots. Recent research has shown that the modern game entered America in the 1850s through New Orleans when Scottish, Irish, German and Italian immigrants brought the game with them. It was in New Orleans that some of the first organized games that used modern English rules were held.
Morgan Paige Gautrat is an American soccer player who plays for the Kansas City Current of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the highest division of women's professional soccer in the United States, and the United States women's national soccer team. She first appeared for the United States national team during a friendly against Korea Republic on June 15, 2013. She has since made 87 total appearances for the team and scored 8 goals.
