First pitch arrives in Springfield for Women's Pro Baseball League: 'We're ballplayers, too'

SPRINGFIELD — The Jimmy Dugan character portrayed by Tom Hanks might have told his Rockford Peaches women's baseball team in the 1992 classic “A League of Their Own” that there’s “no crying in baseball.” But there were tears of joy shed at the inaugural Women’s Pro Baseball League game Saturday in Springfield, where real-life Rockford Peach Maybelle Blair, 99, threw her ceremonial first pitch from a wheelchair to kick off the sold-out season opener. More than 4,000 poncho-wearing fans packed…