New Delhi, Aug. 3 -- SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Mo'ne Davis crossed home plate in the first inning of the first Women's Professional Baseball League game Saturday, becoming the first woman to score a run in professional baseball in 71 years. It happened fast, cleanly, without ceremony. Davis had singled to lead off the top of the frame; Maggie Foxx drove her in two batters later. The Los Angeles Queens had a 1-0 lead, and women's professional baseball, extinct since 1954, was back on the scoreboard.

What followed was more complicated, and considerably more fun to watch.

The Queens would give away that lead and most of the others they built through the night. The New York Heights, resilient and offensively dangerous, turned a deficit into a fou...