Every time Kelsie Whitmore takes the next step toward a career in baseball — feeling uncomfortable, nervous or scared — she asks herself, “Do I really want this?”
The 18-year-old outfielder/pitcher was always the only girl on her Little League, all-star and high school teams — often discouraged from playing and invariably the odd-one-out. But the answer to her question is always a confident yes.
“There’s never no,” said Whitmore, who’s been playing since she was 6. “Baseball chose me.”
Following a surge in opportunities for women in baseball in the USA over the last 20 years — including development of the U.S. Women’s National Team — Whitmore emerged as one of two women recruited to play professional baseball for the Sonoma Stompers in an independent league.
She exemplifies a recent shift in baseball culture, opening the door to more women and girls. It’s the first time since the 1950s in the Negro Leagues multiple women have played professionally alongside men.
With Stompers teammate pitcher/infielder Stacy Piagno, 25, Whitmore made her debut in the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs on July 1. On July 20, Whitmore got her first professional hit, against the San Rafael Pacifics.
“We have this cultural myth that baseball is for boys and softball is for girls,” said Justine Siegal, founder of the nonprofit organization Baseball For All. “The American consciousness is ready to tackle the question of why and to offer opportunities for girls and boys to play baseball. I believe we’re at a tipping point for the growth and explosion of girls’ and women’s baseball in America.”
Although Whitmore was unsure about how her new teammates would feel about her, she was quickly welcomed. They joke and play video games on the clubhouse couch, but she’s also treated like a rookie, still expected to carry the helmet bag and batting equipment.
Stompers general manager Theo Fightmaster compared Whitmore and Piagno to Swiss army knives, saying they’ve grown up being versatile utility players, which ultimately will help the team.
“We shouldn’t expect these girls to come in and be the best player on the team, nor should we cheer them when they pop up,” Fightmaster said. “The next step now is they should be able to fail the same way the guys fail, and they should be treated the same when they succeed.”
Throwback in time
The positive response Whitmore and Piagno have had from teammates hasn’t always been the norm. When pitcher Ila Borders signed with the St. Paul Saints in the independent Northern League in 1997, she was one of the first female players in pro baseball.
Borders said it was obvious her teammates didn’t want her around, questioning her motives for playing. Is it a publicity stunt, does she have an agenda or is she trying just to pick up guys?
“At first, they were not friendly,” said Borders, who played in the league from 1997 to 2000. “They would push me, they would see what I was all about, and as soon as they saw that I could roll with it and just have fun, then they were my biggest supporters.”
On July 7, 1998 while playing for the Duluth-Superior Dukes, Borders became the first female pitcher to start in a men’s pro game, and despite the loss, she pitched five innings and gave up three earned runs, five hits, two strikeouts and two walks. Later that season, she recorded a streak of 12 scoreless innings stretching over two games.
The reaction from Stompers fans after adding Whitmore and Piagno to the lineup has been largely positive, Fightmaster said.
But for Borders – who played professionally until she was 25 — it was the opposite.
People made death threats against her, showed up at her parents’ house in the middle of the night and often would follow her home. But after her teammates began to trust her, they also went out of their way to protect her.
“I could never drive straight home,” Borders said. “I would have to have (teammates) follow me home and take different routes to try to lose people. It was a constant state of danger.”
Hardball vs. Softball
Creating more opportunities for girls and women to play baseball includes challenging the social norm of girls switching to softball when they age out of Little League. But sticking with baseball, like Whitmore and Borders, is easier said than done.
“If you’re a 12- or 13-year-old girl and your option is to be the oddball playing with the boys … or to play softball with your peers and all your friends, a lot of times they make the decision for themselves without the outside pressures,” said Ashley Bratcher, the senior director of baseball operations for USA Baseball. “That’s the age where being socially accepted is important.”
Encouraging girls to stick with the sport, USA Baseball organized a women’s national team in 2004, which plays in international tournaments.
The team competed in the Pan American Games for the first time in 2015, bringing home gold with the help of a no-hitter from Piagno — another first for the team. Whitmore is also on the team, which is preparing for the women’s world cup in South Korea in September.
To increase awareness, USA Baseball hosts the National Team Identification Series, which recruits young players to work with the national team and identifies talent for the future.
An estimated 1,200 girls played baseball in high school in 2015, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. But finding them in small pockets around the country and making them aware of the opportunities available remains a challenge, Bratcher said.
“When I go to the national team, it’s a whole different thing,” said Whitmore, an alumna of the identification series. “We all understand each other. We all went through the same things — being the only girl and (growing) up just wanting to play baseball and always being pushed toward softball.”
‘A League of Their Own’
Baseball and softball are viewed as interchangeable sports in the U.S. But other countries, especially Japan, have solid infrastructures, making the distinction between the two sports with baseball leagues for female athletes, from children to professionals.
Aspiring to that standard, Siegal and Baseball For All push to establish a similar platform. While the organization fully supports co-ed baseball teams, the big-picture goal is to replicate an infrastructure similar to Japan’s to build national opportunities.
Siegal — who was hired in 2015 by the Oakland A’s as the first female coach of a major league team — believes creating equal pathways to baseball is a social justice issue and a future women’s professional league is impossible without a large number of girls playing at all ages.
Last month, 18 teams and more than 175 players from four age groups hailing from nearly every geographic region converged on San Francisco for the organization’s second national tournament.
“Girls and women deserve to have a league of their own,” she said. “On my end with Baseball For All, we need to have girls playing baseball. We need to support them at a young age and provide true opportunities for them to play this game.”
Next month, Fox will debut Pitch, a series on the first female pitcher in the major leagues. Rick Singer, the writer and executive producer, began working on the script not long after Borders’ 1998 pro debut.
Nearly two decades later, it will roll out on the small screen, and Singer says believability is a big reason why.
“It went from the category of one of those Disney, fantasy-type movies like Rookie of the Year, to where it’s now becoming plausible,” says Singer. “That’s one of the great joys for me.”
Borders, now 41, works as a firefighter and paramedic in the Portland, Ore., area, but she remains active in the baseball community, coaching high school and college players individually. She’s also an advisor for Baseball For All and is optimistic about the future because the organization is doing “a remarkable job” helping female players.
“It’s way different (now) than my experience because people were trying to keep me from playing ball, so we are headed in the right direction,” Borders said. “People are more open-minded, and I think people are more receptive and open to women playing baseball.”
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