Women's Baseball World Series
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2001 |
| No. of teams | 8 (in 2004) |
| Continent | International |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Orlando Heat |
| Most titles |
 Japan (2 times)
|
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.
Competitive international women’s baseball began when Japan sent a nationally selected squad, sponsored by a sports drink company named Team Energen, to Florida to participate in the North American Women's Baseball League’s 1999 South Florida Diamond Classic.
At the 1999 South Florida Diamond Classic, Team Energen showed that they could play at the top level of women’s baseball. After a meeting between Japanese and American officials following the tournament, plans were initiated for a contest between a national women’s baseball team from the United States and Team Energen in Tokyo. In May 2000, a United States national women's baseball team flew to Tokyo and played the first competitive international women's baseball game on May 1 in the Seibu Dome against a nationally selected Team Energen squad. The Japanese team defeated the US team in front of 3,000 enthusiastic fans. Organisers were impressed at the success of the game and decided to organise an annual competition called the Women's World Series to be held in the United States or Canada in the summer of 2001. After discussions over the summer with women’s baseball program organisers within the AWBF, Baseball Ontario, the Baseball Victoria (Australia) and the Baseball Federation of Japan plans were developed for the 2001 Women's World Series in Toronto.
The Toronto Blue Jays agreed that several games including the championship game of the 2001 Women’s World Series would be played in the Toronto SkyDome. This proved to be an irresistible venue for attracting Japanese and Australian teams to North America. Australia selected their national women's team from a tryout process woven into their women's first Australian women's national baseball championship. The Australian Baseball Federation selected and trained the team which entered the 2001 Women's World Series. Baseball Canada also selected and trained a women's national team in 2001. Canada dropped out of international competitions after a disappointing fourth-place finish and did not resume play until the 2004 Women's World Series in Uozu City, Japan.
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