Abby Cannon ’20, a graduate student at American University and documentary filmmaker, didn’t have to look far for her next project. She had just finished a documentary on a 14-year-old girls basketball player, and right in her backyard of Washington, D.C., the Women’s Professional Baseball League was holding tryouts for its inaugural season this summer. 

“I’m on this women's sports filmmaking kick,” Abby says, “coming off the basketball documentary making its way around the film festivals now, and this seems like what I want to do now. I love using storytelling to uplift women's sports, and I’ve played sports my whole life, so this feels fulfilling.” 

The basketball documentary, In Her Court, tells the story of Jaylah King and the pressures that accompany someone drawing attention from Division I colleges before entering high school. The film, according to its trailer, “dives into the rapidly changing field of opportunity in women’s sports.” 

That world drastically changed in March for women’s pro basketball when the WNBA reached a new collective bargaining agreement with a new revenue-sharing system that the league says will deliver improved benefits and salary caps per team of $7 million compared to $1.5 million. Salary structure has been a long struggle in a league that was founded 30 years ago. 

As the women start this brand new baseball league, Abby says, seeing the WNBA reach this agreement is inspirational.  

Her documentary on the start of the Women’s Professional Baseball League is tentatively titled Fire Starters. The United States has not had a pro women’s baseball league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1943–54. The 1992 film, A League of Their Own, starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, and Madonna, was about that league, founded during World War II to keep baseball in the public eye when many men were in the war.  

The new women’s league has four teams — New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — and all games will be played at one site in Springfield, Ill. The plan is for a four-week regular season, August 1 through mid-September, followed by two weeks of playoffs. Each team will play two games per week. 

Abby says her film will reference the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. “I think it is important to recognize professional women’s baseball is coming back after 80 years in a different time and a different landscape. I remember loving A League of Their Own growing up — I still love that movie — but this looks a lot different. And this is the first integrated women's professional baseball league as well, which also is important to recognize.” 

Abby’s film, which is her capstone project in her master’s program in film and media study, concentrates on three players — Valerie Perez, Keira Izumi, and Stephanie Everett. Ms. Perez is a former firefighter in Corpus Christi, Texas, who has played on the USA Baseball Women's National Team and was coach of the Firefighters, a Banana Ball team. (Banana Ball is a version of the entertainment-based baseball created by the Savannah Bananas.) Ms. Izumi, from San Diego, Calif., has played baseball since she was 6 and founded a club team at the University of Southern California. Ms. Everett, from Silver Spring, Md., played baseball alongside boys through high school and earned D.C. Area All-Star honors in 2015. She is a Dartmouth College alumna. 

“They are three different people from different backgrounds and walks of life, but all have one thing in common — they grew up playing baseball and loving baseball,” Abby says. “As soon as I got to know those three women, I realized their stories intertwined very well. They represented three stages of life converging at this one historic moment.” 

Abby graduated from Oberlin College in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in cinema studies. She was on the Oberlin track and field team. At Loomis she played soccer and basketball and was on the track and field team. She now is an assistant track and field coach at Georgetown Day School. 

“Sports has been at the center of my world for as long as I can remember,” she says. “I played soccer as soon as I could walk.” Soon came track and field, then basketball. Abby and her dad, Jeff Cannon ’76, a folk singer-songwriter, bonded over sports. Both are big fans of the New York Yankees. As fate would have it, Abby recently was in Fort Myers, Fla., the spring training location of the Yankees’ archrivals, the Boston Red Sox, where she was filming the women players in training.  

Jeff, who teaches at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, is retiring this spring and will devote himself to his music, Abby says. “It has been really nice to talk to him about living an artist's life, something he has been doing for his whole life,” she says. “Being a musician, a dad, a professor, finding a way to make money while doing what you’re passionate about. He has laid great groundwork for me to see what that life is like.”  

The film is expected to be completed in late summer. 

“I’m really drawn to telling true stories in creative ways,” Abby says. “I love getting to know people, their stories, forming genuine connections with them, and representing them in beautiful ways that also touch other people. I love uncovering things, bringing things to light, showing people what they don't get to see all the time.” 

She will be in Springfield, Ill., when the season opens August 1 as a new chapter of women’s pro baseball begins. Players will make minimal money. There is a salary cap per team of $95,000. But the WNBA had to start somewhere, too. 

A link to the trailer.