U.S., Israel and Hamas At Odds Over Disarmament Deal, Nancy Guthrie Notes

Summary

Podcast Summary: Here’s the Scoop – U.S., Israel and Hamas At Odds Over Disarmament Deal, Nancy Guthrie Notes

Podcast: Here’s the Scoop (NBC News)
Host: Yasmin Vossoughian
Date: August 3, 2026
Notable Guests: Matt Bradley (International Correspondent), Tom Winter (Law Enforcement Correspondent), Kelsey Whitmore (Women’s Pro Baseball Player)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into:

• The stalemate between the U.S., Israel, and Hamas over a purported disarmament deal in Gaza, and the political dynamics behind recent failed peace announcements.
• New developments in the kidnapping case of Nancy Guthrie, including analysis of recently released ransom notes.
• The revival of professional women’s baseball in the U.S., featuring an emotional interview with league star Kelsey Whitmore.

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1. U.S., Israel & Hamas: Disarmament Deal Stalemate

Key Segment: [00:09]–[08:29]

Discussion Highlights

• Conflicting Claims on a Disarmament Deal

  • President Trump announced on Truth Social that his Board of Peace “reached an agreement” for Hamas to disarm in Gaza.
  • Hamas responded: Disarmament depends on Israeli withdrawal from Gaza—something Israel categorically rejects.
  • Israel’s government stated the publicized deal “does not reflect Israel’s position.”

• Stalemate Details

  • Matt Bradley: “It’s this chicken and egg conundrum… Israel has said until Hamas disarms they won’t withdraw, Hamas says they won’t disarm until Israel withdraws. It makes any movement impossible.” [02:12]

• Trump’s Negotiation Style

  • Analysts point out a familiar pattern: Trump makes grand public announcements to pressure parties into a deal, even when no agreement exists yet.
    • “This is consistent with what Trump has done in the past… force [the parties] by public pressure and humiliation… just force them to get on board after you make the announcement.” – Matt Bradley [02:53]
  • This approach previously succeeded with an October 2025 ceasefire, but regional leaders now “just kind of ignore [Trump’s announcements] and pretend it didn’t happen.” [03:42]

• On-the-Ground Reality in Gaza

  • Despite a ceasefire since fall, Israeli Defense Forces have continued large-scale operations in Gaza.
    • “Well more than a thousand people… have been killed by Israeli strikes ever since that October 2025 deal.” – Matt Bradley [04:46]
  • Living conditions remain dire: “Maybe 90% of the population… don’t have homes, living in tents… totally exposed to the elements.” [05:09]

• Why No Progress?

  • The so-called “Board of Peace” has “no teeth, it has no money” and the details needed to achieve durable peace are continually pushed “down the road.” [06:09]
  • Analysts compare this approach to the “Kevin Costner school of ‘build it and they will come’”—Trump assumes the mere declaration of peace will bring it about, but “everybody knows better now.” [07:26]

Notable Quote:

“Trump… ended the war in Gaza, but he didn’t end the fighting. He certainly didn’t end the killing. He definitely didn’t end the suffering.” – Matt Bradley [04:50]

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2. Nancy Guthrie Ransom Notes: Latest in a High-Profile Kidnapping

Key Segment: [10:29]–[17:58]

Discussion Highlights

• Case Update

  • After six months with little progress, Arizona authorities released two ransom notes possibly tied to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
  • The notes, dated Feb 2 and Feb 6, demand a Bitcoin ransom and claim (in the latter note) that Nancy died of a heart condition.

• Why Release the Notes Now?

  • Tom Winter: “There’s certainly something in [the notes] that they have to take very seriously.” [11:23]
  • Law enforcement hopes someone will recognize the language or details—a strategy modeled after the Unabomber case.
    • “There was precedent for this… The family read [the published Unabomber manifesto] and said, this is what our relative has been saying for years… that was the critical lead.” [13:35]

• Challenges in the Investigation

  • The notes lack ideology or motive, making it hard for the public to connect them to a suspect.
  • On investigation progress: “Somebody planned this quite meticulously… There’s no car… no indication this individual had a cell phone… a lot of questions that need to be answered.” – Tom Winter [16:45]

• What Should the Public Look For?

  • People with sudden behavior changes, changes in relationships, or financial windfalls.
    • “Somebody that did this, it would impact them… there’s a million dollars on the table right now… somebody could come forward.” – Tom Winter [15:05]

• Host (Yasmin) pressing about perceived investigation failures

  • “Where did this investigation go so wrong six months in?” [16:07]
  • Tom Winter responds that without a clear misstep, criticism is premature: “Once there is a resolution… then… constructive accountability.” [17:25]

Notable Quote:

“There’s a million dollars on the table right now… that’s gonna give somebody an opportunity to change their life and come forward.” – Tom Winter [15:45]

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3. Women’s Professional Baseball Returns

Key Segment: [19:23]–[24:54]

Discussion Highlights

• Historic Opening Day

  • 99-year-old Maybelle Blair threw the ceremonial first pitch for the new Women's Professional Baseball League. Kelsey Whitmore, star and captain of the San Francisco Fire Bells, caught the pitch.
    • “Her dream was to throw out the first pitch whenever we would ever have another league… I broke down… tears of joy and, like, relief knowing that, like, we’re here. We made it.” – Kelsey Whitmore [20:29]

• Women in Baseball vs. Softball

  • Whitmore always preferred baseball but played college softball due to lack of opportunity.
    • “I've been playing baseball since I was 6… The only time I switched over to softball was in college because there were no opportunities for me to play baseball.” [21:33]

• On Lack of MLB Support

  • The new pro softball league is MLB-backed, but not women’s baseball:
    • “It definitely stung a little bit when I saw MLB support [the] softball league and… not the baseball side… you don’t always have the biggest people supporting you… but we, I think we got it with this league.” – Kelsey Whitmore [22:17]

• Pay Disparities & Future Hopes

  • Players earn $300–$500 per game (with lodging and meals), a stark contrast to rising salaries in women’s basketball and soccer.
  • “It took 30 years nearly for the WNBA to get to where they are now... What do you want for women’s baseball?” [23:42]
  • “The biggest goal for me out of this league is to get people to support women in this game and show up to watch. We have so much history and story.” [24:01]
  • Whitmore describes the moving opening ceremony—connecting past, present, and future generations of women players.

Notable Quotes:

“Women’s baseball is just—yeah, like we’re making history, but like, we’ve been here already and we’re just finally now being seen.” – Kelsey Whitmore [24:44]

“We want to show every young girl that she belongs to baseball and she doesn’t have to play softball. She has a career in this game now.” – Kelsey Whitmore [22:50]

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4. Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “The President has been the boy who cried peace, the boy who cried opening the Strait of Hormuz, and everybody has ignored it successfully without the president turning on them.” – Matt Bradley [03:48]
• “You don’t put this note out right away… in this case… we don’t have an ideology, we don’t have a motive or reason in any of these notes… so that would make it more difficult.” – Tom Winter [14:02]
• “[On the opening ceremonies:] There was just. There was so much history there. They had young girls that are in the game right now walk to home plate holding a torch… and now the current players, myself and three other players walk down… you don’t see that anywhere.” – Kelsey Whitmore [24:18]

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5. Timestamps – Key Segments

• Intro & Israel-Hamas Deal: [00:09]–[08:29]
• Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping Update: [10:29]–[17:58]
• Women’s Baseball Revival (Kelsey Whitmore Interview): [19:23]–[24:54]

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Conclusion

This episode is a rich, multi-topic look at the enduring difficulties of Middle East peacemaking under headline-driven leadership, the heartbreak and complexity of a high-profile kidnapping case, and the emotional resurgence of women’s baseball in America. The reporting blends expert commentary, exclusive analysis, and personal stories, tying together politics, crime, and sports in a tightly-crafted half hour.

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For deeper dives, visit NBCNews.com or subscribe to the Inside Scoop newsletter.

Transcript

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Women's baseball is just, yeah, like we're making history, but like we've been here already and we're just finally now being seen.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Yes, women are finally being seen. Hi, everybody and welcome to here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmem Desugin. So today on the show we are talking about the women's baseball league. It is alive and well. And the OG from the former women's baseball league, a 99 year old player who helped inspire a league of her own throughout the first pitch that was caught by Kelsey Whitmore, a current star of the women's baseball league. And Kelsey is going to join us later on in the show. We are also talking about Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show co host Savannah Guthrie, who has been missing now for more than six months. And those two notes that were released by law enforcement just a few days ago. Tom Winter, our NBC News national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent, is going to join us on that. Up first, though, with so much focus on Iran, we haven't heard a lot from the White House about the situation in Israel and Gaza lately. Then last week, President Trump posted on Truth Social that his board of peace had reached an agreement for Hamas to disarm in Gaza. But Hamas officials then responded saying they're only going to disarm if Israel withdraws from from Gaza. And now Israel says it's not on board with the deal at all. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told NBC News that the version of the deal that was made public, quote, does not reflect Israel's position. So why did President Trump say a deal was reached when neither side agrees to it? And how far apart are Israel and Hamas on Gaza? For this, I want to bring in NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley. Hi, Matt. Hey. You and I spoke last week. I know you were skeptical of this deal from the jump. And obviously now we see part of the reason why. Now that we have a response from Israel saying that they've shared their quote, unquote concerns, do we know what those concerns are?

[Matt Bradley]

Well, I think the concerns are probably going to be just the concerns that I laid out before. There's the concerns that Israel has had the entire time. They will not withdraw. They have consistently said until hu Hamas disarms. Hamas has said they will not disarm until Israel withdraws. So it's this chicken and egg conundrum that makes any movement impossible. And this is one of the things that folks that I was talking to about this. Analysts, former negotiators from the Israeli and the American side, they were saying, look, this is consistent with what Trump has done in the past. There's one of the things he did in order to get that October 2025 deal over the line to begin with, which is you make the announcement and you force the parties simply by force of public pressure and humiliation or embarrassment, the potential that they might have to cross the president publicly. You just force them to get on board after you make the announcement. One of the analysts I spoke to,

[Yasmin Bisugin]

can you do it with a situation like this? Can you do it with Israel and Gaza? Can you do it with Israel and Hamas?

[Matt Bradley]

Well, he did. He did it successfully back in October 2025, and that's why he probably felt like he could do it again. And that's one of the things that when we talk about with the president, we see this kind of pattern. We see that he maybe felt like the Venezuela situation was a success, so maybe he could do the same in Iran. We see him learning in real time, and this might be one of those situations. Unfortunately, in this case, it doesn't seem to have worked. It hasn't necessarily caused a lot of blowback. It's just that, once again, what we're going to be seeing, and we've seen this again with people in the region where he makes a big announcement and everybody just kind of ignores it and pretends it didn't happen. It's been happening so many times. The President has been the boy who cried peace, the boy who cried opening the Strait of Hormuz, and everybody has ignored it successfully without the president turning on them. So this is that kind of situation again, and especially with the Israelis. Yasmin, remember the Israelis? Benjamin Netanyahu used to say that President Trump was the greatest president that Israel has ever had. And now the President has excoriated Benjamin Netanyahu publicly, And so did J.D. vance. So maybe Netanyahu and the Israelis no longer feel like they have anything to gain by simply climbing on board with whatever capricious whim the President throws out there.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Meanwhile, amidst all this, even though they've kind of been in this ceasefire since. Since fall, the ceasefire has seems to be as successful as the one between Iran and the United States, because the Gaza Health Ministry has said that Israeli strikes killed at least 26 people over the weekend. How active in this time period has the IDF been in Gaza?

[Matt Bradley]

Massively active. I mean, we're talking about, well, more than a thousand people who have been killed by Israeli strikes ever since that October 2025 deal. So one analyst put it to me quite succinctly. Trump, in that 2025 deal, he ended the war in Gaza, but he didn't end the fighting. He certainly didn't end the killing. He definitely didn't end the suffering. There's still a lot of deprivation and there's still a huge number, maybe 90% of the population who are living rough. They don't have homes, they're living in tents, they're living on the beach. They're totally exposed to the elements. So there has been progress in the Gaza Strip, if you call not a state, a full scale war. Progress? Yeah, for sure. The release of the hostages, progress, the allowing in of quite a bit, but not as much foreign aid as many of the activists and advocacy groups in the Gaza Strip want. That is progress. But what it hasn't done is tied up the whole situation. And again, going back to this point I was making earlier, one of the analysts I spoke with called this the Kevin Costner school of build it and they will come that if you just make the announcement, everybody's going to jump on board. And like you said, Yasmin, as exactly as you described, it might have worked before, but it's not working now. And all the parties involved know that they don't have to do that this time.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

What is it going to take for Hamas to budge, for instance, for Netanyahu to budge? And why would one side trust the other? Why would either of them trust the other anyway?

[Matt Bradley]

Well, there's this points that were laid out right by the Board of Peace, which by the way, is an almost moribund administrative body. It has no teeth, it has no money, as we know from the Financial Times reporting a couple of months ago. So there's nothing behind it. But they released some bullet points describing the process by which this would happen. But again, as with everything that we've seen from the Trump administration, From the Iran MoU to the October 2025 ceasefire, it takes the big prize up front and then it kicks the rest of the details, the can, down the road. And that means that negotiators have to actually come up with the details. And that is, well, as they say, it's where the devil is.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

So let's talk about another situation that doesn't seem to be necessarily bearing out the way the President would like. The president has expressed frustration with Iran on Truth Social today, though, saying that talks have started back up. But Iranian officials are saying, no, no, no, no, we're not talking to the United States, we're talking to Oman, which was Part of the memorandum of understanding in which Iran would partner with Oman to negotiate management of the Strait of Hormuz. Can you, Matt, help us make sense of why it is the president would say talks have started back up, but Iran clarified by saying it's with Oman.

[Matt Bradley]

Again, I want to file this under what I just described, the Kevin Costner school of build it and they will come. You know, but as you noted, Yasmin, that just isn't the case anymore. It might have been the case back earlier on in his term when everybody was grateful to have this new voice who was burst through the walls and changing the paradigm. Now, unlike before, when President Trump was new in his second term, now they don't have that, that feeling that maybe this is new. Now it's old, the habits are old. The building and they will come. That didn't work. And now everybody knows better. And so they're not going to be quite as conciliatory to that really, really ramming it through kind of approach that has just led to constant misunderstandings and failure and frankly, ignorance or ignoring. This is the thing, President Trump will make these announcements and instead of people getting up there and saying, no, that's not what we're doing, like what you saw with Hamas and Israel, they just kind of let it slide, Let it go.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Matt Bradley, thank you.

[Matt Bradley]

Thank you, Yasmin.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

All right. Law enforcement in Arizona has released two ransom notes allegedly from the kidnappers of Nancy Guthrie. Why? They're asking the public for help now. We're gonna talk about that coming up. And also while you're listening to the ads, do us a favor, hit the subscribe button. If you're already subscribed, remember to rate and review us. It helps us reach a much bigger audience and we might even read your review on the show. I'll see you on the other side.

[Tom Winter]

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[Yasmin Bisugin]

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[Kelsey Whitmore]

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[Yasmin Bisugin]

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[Yasmin Bisugin]

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[Tom Winter]

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[Yasmin Bisugin]

Create your first Monday agent in [e-mail]. And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. So it has been more than six months since the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of TODAY co host Savannah Guthrie. The Arizona Sheriff's Department has now released two ransom notes that were sent the week after Nancy's abduction from her home near Tucson. The authorities and Savannah's family are asking for the public's help in getting any kind of answers. So I want to bring in NBC News national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, who's been following this case from the very beginning. Hi, Tom.

[Matt Bradley]

Hi, Asben.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

I want to talk about these two ransom notes that were just released. What is in them and why did they wait till now to release them?

[Tom Winter]

These notes are not 100% linked to this case yet, but there are a number of different things that are contained in both notes that would lead you to believe that there's certainly something that they have to take very seriously. February 2nd is the time of the first note. February 6th is the time of the second note. And the February 2nd note is quite explicit. It's addressed to Savannah and it says, we have your mother. There is a demand for money in it payable in Bitcoin. A specific US Dollar amount is there. And it says that if this dollar amount is paid, that should it be, Nancy Guthrie would be returned back to Tucson, which is an interesting choice of words in a safe location. And then they would be told where to pick it up. You remember at the time that Savannah and her brother and sister released a video saying, hey, we would like us to could you tell us some more? Tell us we're give us effectively a proof of life is what it's called in the law enforcement community way to make sure that this person did in fact have Nancy Guthrie that gets us to our second note, where it says, over the course of the past several days, through no fault of your own, your own would be a reference to the Guthrie family, that Nancy Guthrie has died, and that they believed it was because of a heart condition and that there was nothing that they could do. And then they say, we are sorry. Everybody in law enforcement doesn't think that that's an apology for doing this. It's just an apology for the way that it turned out. And I think ultimately this case has gotten to a point where they are hoping maybe there's something in the way that these are written. And they're available on our website, they're available on the Pima County Sheriff's website and on their ex feed, that there's something in there, the way that something is written, that somebody will say, aha, that might be a relative of mine. And of course, there's precedent for this. Like, go back and look at the Unabomb case, which turned into the Unabomber in Ted Kaczynski. His family, once they published. The FBI published his.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

He wrote those notes.

[Tom Winter]

He wrote notes to his family member. They were typed. They were sent out. And he said he wanted his screed to be published. It was published in the Washington Post. The family read them and said, this is what our relative has been saying for years. And they actually reached out to the FBI through their attorney, and that was the critical lead that broke open the Unabomber case and eventually led to the arrest and successful prosecution of Ted Kaczynski.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

The difference, if that's the case, why wouldn't they? Again, it goes back to my first question. Why not sooner?

[Tom Winter]

You don't put this note out right away to do the example that I cited of the Unabomber case, potentially, because the sample size here is very small. There's no ideology that's espoused. There's no belief that's espoused. And certainly in the case of the Unabomber and Ted Kaczynski, the things that he believed in were very much outside of kind of the normal ideology that people have. And it would have been easier for somebody to pick out and say, ah, that's my relative versus this, where we don't have an ideology. We don't have any sort of saying, we don't have a motive or reason in any of these notes. So that would make it more difficult for somebody to pick up the phone and say, aha. I recognize that.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

So Savannah posted on her social media, she wrote, in part, we are begging for help. We need someone to come forward. What should people be looking for in these notes to identify an individual if they wanted to help in some way?

[Tom Winter]

I thought it was great, finally, that law enforcement issued some examples of that over the weekend. And one of the things that they talked about are people that all of a sudden have some changes in their personal habits, in their lifestyle that seems somewhat different. And that's something that law enforcement experts have been talking about since the beginning. I mean, you can't go through this, do what this person or persons have done, committed this crime, and not have it impact you. It's obviously impacted the family a lot more because they're the victims of this. But somebody that did this, it would impact them. And so that's what they're hoping people recognize. They're also hoping. And I think the language from Savannah, not only right after the incident, but more recently, very smart in calling for, you know, what allegiances change over time, and maybe somebody you were loyal to, you're not so loyal to anymore. There's a million dollars on the table right now as you and I are sitting here. So there's a great opportunity for somebody to come forward. And if you're financially beholden to somebody else, that million dollars is gonna go a long way, and that's gonna give somebody an opportunity to change their life and come forward.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

I just gotta ask you, Tom, because I think a lot of people are thinking this, which is it's been six months. They have the surveillance video of the individual outside of Nancy Guthrie's home with a face mask on and a backpack on. That surveillance video came out, what, two, three weeks after she had been taken. Within the first days, they have these notes. Now, where did this investigation go so wrong six months in?

[Tom Winter]

Well, I don't know how I know a lot of people have said that, and I'm still waiting to hear what is the fact that tells you the investigation's gone wrong.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

I mean, they have a founder. They don't know who these guys are.

[Tom Winter]

Okay? So I'll just play devil's advocate how somebody planned this quite meticulously. There's no car that's seen on any of the video. There's no indication. I mean, they sent some of the best cell phone mapping technology, people from the FBI in the country to this. There's no indication this individual had a cell phone on them. They may have been having a walkie talkie. What was in that backpack? Was that camping gear? Were they camped out for days? Were there multiple people involved? There's a lot of questions that need to be answered for all the evidence they do have to your point. And so in order for anybody to say that something went wrong, you're going to have to show me the thing that went wrong early on. And I don't think anybody's come forward and said that with any sort of fact of if this had been done then somebody would be in jail right now. Nobody's reported that. I've not heard that. I think when somebody is arrested here, once there is a resolution to this case, then I think at that point we'll have a much clearer sense of the timeline and the people involved and that will be a very appropriate time for constructive accountability in this case, time.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Winter. Thank you.

[Tom Winter]

You got it.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

All right. We are going to take a very quick break, but when we come back, you remember A League of Their Own. Well, women's pro baseball is back for the first time in more than 70 years. We are joined by one of the league stars to talk about the first game and how they are pitching women's baseball to fans. That's next. Try angel stuff for your tushy. It's made by Angels. Soft and strong, budget friendly. The choice is simple. Pick up a pack today. Angelsoft Soft and strong, simple.

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[Matt Bradley]

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[Yasmin Bisugin]

Oh, agents, where would we be without you?

[Tom Winter]

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[Yasmin Bisugin]

Create your first Monday agent in [e-mail] and we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. So those cheers are for 99 year old Mae Belle Blair. She's thrown out a ceremonial first pitch on opening day of the new Women's Professional Baseball League, which kicked off its inaugural season this weekend. Just four teams for now, but Blair played in the first women's pro baseball league, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. It was disbanded in the 1950s. So I want to talk to Kelsey Whitmore, who is the captain of the San Francisco Fire Bells and one of the biggest stars in the league. Hey, Kelsey.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Hey. How are you guys? Thanks for having me on it.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

It is really cool to have you on. So opening day was Saturday. Big day. There was this ceremonial first pitch, which you actually caught. And it was kind of like a historical moment, right? It was a special moment when it came to women's baseball. Tell me about it.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Yeah. No, it was so awesome. I was honestly emotional all day. It didn't hit me until the moment I walked in and I saw Mabel Blair. You know her. And I go back. I've known her since I was 15, and her dream was to throw out the first pitch whenever we would ever have another league, when we never knew when. And her and I had talked about that moment and so being able. Able to finally have it. And the moment I first saw her, I just. I broke down because it was just like. Just tears of joy and, like, relief knowing that, like, we're here. We made it. It's finally happening.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

What was her pitch like? Did she land it?

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Oh, it was perfect. I didn't even need to move my glove. I. It was exactly where it needed to be. Yeah. Hey, baseball brings you life. She. And it was like she didn't miss the field at all. So it was perfect.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

So you have played both softball and baseball in your time. There's actually a new pro softball league as well, right? Athletes Unlimited softball league started last year. But you're going for baseball, not for softball. Why is that?

[Kelsey Whitmore]

I mean, I've been playing baseball since I was 6 years old. Ever since then, I had always been the only girl on my team all the way through little league, high school, and then professional baseball on the women's national team. The only time I switched over to softball wasn't was in college because there were no opportunities for me to play baseball. But I just fell in love with the game at a young age, and then I never fell out of love with it.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

You know, the MLB backs ausl. Do you feel as if there's kind of like a splintering that could feasibly happen because the women's league is not backed by the MLB like that. That splintering could happen where, you know, you have some women playing for the softball league. You have some women playing for the baseball league, and so there's not like 100% supporter behind anything.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

It definitely stung a little bit when I saw MLB support softball league and not, you know, there hasn't been much on the baseball side that they've supported. I don't know. It's kind of ironic, actually, you know, being A female in the game, you don't always have the biggest people supporting you. You don't always have the people supporting you that make sense. And it's. We've been dealing it for so long. What's going to hurt, you know, if we keep going with it? So we, I think we got it with this league and honestly, it's. It's been popping off and we're just keeping that momentum going. We want to show every young girl that she belongs to baseball and she doesn't have to play softball. She has a career in this game now. And that's our, that's our goal. I know that's my mission as a player in this league. To not only keep competing and to do what I can, to perform the best that I can with my abilities and my tools, but to also help grow the league and build it and create a pipeline for young girls to be able to play this game.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Women's sports is on fire right now. Right. You got the WNBA renegotiating their CBA so that players can actually make multiples of what they did before. That's their collective bargaining agreement. When I said cba, the National Women's Soccer League has a collective bargaining agreement into 20, 30, and some of the top players are signing million dollar contracts. Looking at what you guys are making, 300 to $500 a game, including lodging and meals. You got a battle ahead of you.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Right.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

This is an uphill battle. It took 30 years nearly for the WNBA to get to where they are now. If you can look into the future for me, what do you want to come out of this league? Where do you want women's baseball to go? What do you think will happen and how quickly do you think it can happen?

[Kelsey Whitmore]

The biggest goal for me out of this league is to get people to support women in this game and show up to watch. I want to get people show up. Yeah. And watch. And we have so much history and story.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Yeah. If.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

If anyone were to see the opening ceremonies, it was emotional because there was just. There was so much history there. They had young girls that are in the game right now walk to home plate holding a torch. And then they had the All American Girls Professional Baseball League players that used to play walk down, hold the torch. And now the current players, myself and three other players walk down and it's just like you don't see that anywhere. And women's baseball is just, yeah, like we're making history, but like, we've been here already and we're just finally now being seen and our stories are able to impact so many people just to keep going with something that you love, even when you may get shot down.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Kelsey, what more? We wish you the best of luck.

[Matt Bradley]

Thank you.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

That is going to do it for us at here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bisugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for the Inside Scoop as part of our paid subscription at nbcnews. Com. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Tom Winter]

I'm Craig Melvin.

[Yasmin Bisugin]

Cheers.

[Kelsey Whitmore]

Cheers. Cheers.

[Matt Bradley]

I've always been a glass half full

[Tom Winter]

kind of guy, and now I'm talking

[Matt Bradley]

to some people who look at the world that way, too.

[Tom Winter]

Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges.

[Matt Bradley]

Their stories are funny and quite candid.

[Tom Winter]

So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass Half Full.

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