Chico Outlaws They went on to sweep defending Champion Calgary in the first round of the playoffs. They signed 18-year-old female Japanese knuckleball pitcher Eri Yoshida, the first woman to play pro baseball in Japan, on April 9, 2010, to play the 2010 season. She is the first female pro baseball player in the United States in ten years. On June 24, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was on-hand and after Yoshida's start presented her with a plaque and collected her jersey and bat for inclusion in Cooperstown. The Outlaws were one of six former GBL teams to join
Professional sports leagues in the United States in North America. Founded in 1996 and beginning play in the 1997 season, it is the longest-running American professional women's sport league in history. The league's attendance has fluctuated over the last several seasons. It had an average per-game attendance of 8,039 in 2009 and 7,834 in 2010. Total attendance was 1,598,160 in 2010. In 2007, the league signed a television deal with ESPN that would run from 2009 to 2016. This deal is the first to ever pay rights fees to women's teams. In 2009 it had a total television viewership of 413,000 in combined cable and broadcast television.