The best thing that happened to Beth Greenwood’s baseball career may have been something she never planned for: becoming a coach.
For most of her life, Greenwood’s path seemed straightforward. She played Division III baseball at the University of Rochester, earned an engineering degree and landed a job as a Baseball Research and Development Fellow with the Philadelphia Phillies. That eventually led to coaching stops as a minor league catching coach and, most recently, as the pitching coach at Vassar College.
However, coaching wasn’t part of the original plan.
Neither, for that matter, was playing professional baseball.
Now, Greenwood is preparing to do both.
“I was trying to figure out what team I can get drafted by,” Greenwood said to The IX Sports. “ I realized at that point, Boston only had one catcher, so I was like, I think I was like, ‘Hh my gosh, like that would be so cool.’”
The 24-year-old catcher was selected by the newly named Boston Hunters in the third round of the inaugural Women’s Professional Baseball League Draft last December. Since then, she’s spent months waiting for opening day on Aug. 2.
“It hasn’t fully hit yet,” she said. “I think that first day when we get to Springfield is gonna feel like this is actually really, really happening because there’s a bunch of us who have been playing our entire lives and we’ve played a lot of girls’ and women’s baseball and we’ve hoped that this would happen especially in our playing careers. But I think I kind of got to a point before the announcement of this league that realistically, I didn’t think that there was gonna be a women’s pro league in the United States before my playing career was over.”
That feeling first became tangible last August, when Greenwood joined roughly 600 players at the league’s inaugural tryouts in Washington, D.C.
“Seeing all of these women who, a lot of them, kind of knew that they weren’t necessarily going to get picked for the draft, but just wanted to (be there),” Greenwood said. “This was a childhood dream or a dream they’ve had their whole life, so that was really cool.”
Greenwood’s own dream started long before that.
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She began playing baseball as a young child and never stopped, in part because, as she puts it, neither she nor her family “knew better.”
While many girls eventually switched to softball, Greenwood stayed with baseball. She endured the stares and questions, but her parents never pushed her toward a different sport.
“They didn’t automatically (say) just like, ‘Oh, girls must play softball,'” Greenwood said. “That they’re like, ‘Oh, you like baseball? You want to keep playing baseball? Like, cool. Yeah, baseball then.’ So I think for me, that was like a fundamental part of it. … I didn’t have a problem with being different, and I was, you know, totally okay with being around the guys growing up.”
Greenwood played through youth leagues before earning a spot on the varsity team at Souhegan High School in Amherst, New Hampshire. After just two varsity plate appearances, she walked onto the baseball team at the University of Rochester, becoming part of a small but growing group of women playing on men’s college rosters.
She later joined USA Baseball’s Women’s National Team pipeline, spending 2018-22 on the Development Roster/Top 40 before making the Top 20 National Team roster in 2023.
Even then, Greenwood never imagined women’s baseball would become her full-time future.
She certainly didn’t envision becoming a coach.
“I pretty quickly realized I couldn’t just be behind a laptop or a screen,” she said. “I realized that being a player and still playing has made me a better coach because I’m able to connect with my players and relate. And it’s not just like, ‘Hey, I did this 50 years ago.’ It’s like, ‘Hey, like I’m doing this right now.’”
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That perspective carried over to Vassar, where Greenwood spent this past season balancing her first collegiate coaching job with preparing for the inaugural WPBL season.
“It was a really cool opportunity because it’s hard to do both at the same time,” Greenwood said. “I genuinely believe that they both have helped each other and made me better at both.”
Her impact extends beyond her own teams.
“Beth is a great role model both on and off the field for young girls in baseball,” said San Francisco Firebells pitcher Kelsie Whitmore, who has played with Greenwood on Team USA. “She brings so much integrity and grit to the table. That’s what I see in her, and I couldn’t be more proud to compete in the same league as her.”
Like every player entering the WPBL’s inaugural season, Greenwood is stepping into the unknown. The Hunters didn’t even receive their team name until less than a month before opening day, and they still don’t have a coaching staff.
But uncertainty has defined much of Greenwood’s baseball journey. Coaching opened doors she never expected. Now, professional baseball has done the same.
“To get to be part of this, you know, this group that gets to create this, and then hopefully once I am done playing, kind of continue it and hopefully be able to coach, and you know, contribute to the league in that way and kind of see it grow from the very beginning.”
Howard Megdal contributed reporting to this story.
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