pepe: Baseball and softball, a good analogy. Except softball is a watered-down version of baseball, baseball being the original sport. So I'm not sure your league=baseball comment fits. In NA, baseball of course is a rich professional sport with a long tradition, where softball (the fast-pitch kind) is a minor sport played mainly at local levels, although in the US the women's version is very popular, with university scholarships and the Olympics.
And baseball isn't signing any softball players to switch codes.
I played softball as a kid and teen, when it was the popular sport in my town. When I got older youth baseball came along and replaced it, I think partly because ML Baseball came to Canada. Now fast-pitch softball is very rare, but lots of older guys play slow-pitch in recreational leagues