Ashton Lansdell was named captain of the Los Angeles Queens before the team’s opening day on Saturday, giving the new club a clear leader as the Women’s Pro Baseball League began its first season since 1954.
That is why her name is drawing attention now. The league’s debut is a rare return for women’s professional baseball, and Lansdell arrives with the kind of resume that makes the captaincy more than a ceremonial title: she was drafted seventh overall in December, has played baseball since she was 4 and had already built a path through high school, college and international play.
Lansdell said the role fits the way she has approached the game for years. She was the first girl to pitch at the 7A level at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Ga., and helped lead that team to a regional title in 2019. She later made the U.S. women’s national team in 2018 and hit 11 for 15 with two doubles and two home runs for the tournament-winning U.S. at a women’s baseball World Cup. Before reaching this point, she had to take a detour that says as much about the state of the sport as it does about her own stubbornness.
Lansdell said she switched to softball because it was the only way to get a college scholarship, even though she always wanted to be a baseball player. She played junior college ball her freshman year and tore an anterior cruciate ligament, then spent two seasons at Florida International before finishing her career at Mississippi. Brittany Apgar said she was honored to learn from Lansdell, calling her D1 college experience huge even if it came in softball.
Now the path she kept pushing toward has opened again. Lansdell said she expected to be back at third base for the Queens, and she has talked about how long she believed this moment would come. The harder question is not whether she belongs in the league; it is how quickly the Women’s Pro Baseball League can turn one opening day into something lasting, with the Queens and the rest of the circuit trying to prove the return of professional women’s baseball is not a one-day headline.
