The Oakland Ballers have signed pitcher Kelsie Whitmore, who will become the first woman to play in the independent Pioneer League. This follows the February announcement by the Oakland Athletics naming Jenny Cavnar as the first female primary play-by-play announcer for a major league team. It’s the second time this year that a woman has made baseball history, and both have occurred in Oakland.
Perhaps the Bay Area is more enlightened than the rest of the world. The San Francisco Giants made history of their own last October, interviewing Alyssa Nakken for their vacated managerial position. Instead, the job went to Bob Melvin, who somehow managed to finish 82-80 with the San Diego Padres in 2023 despite a $254 million payroll.
Who Is Kelsie Whitmore?
The Ballers are an expansion team that will debut in the Pioneer League next month. Whitmore, who turns 26 next month, has previous independent league experience. She played for the Sonoma Stompers of the Pacific Association in 2016 and 2017, the “independent collegiate wood bat” Portland Pickles in 2021, and the Staten Island FerryHawks of the Atlantic League in 2022 and 2023. With the FerryHawks, she was the first woman to play for an MLB-affiliated league. She’s pitched and played in the outfield. For the Ballers, she will concentrate strictly on pitching. The right-hander features two- and four-seam fastballs, a curveball, slider, and changeup. During the tryouts, she registered in the mid-80s on the radar gun.
Over her four seasons with the Stompers and the FerryHawks, Whitmore was 0-1 with an 11.92 ERA and 2.532 WHIP in 26 games, which included just one start. She’s hit .038/.136/.038 in 79 at-bats as a batter. Of course, these stats indicate that she was seldom used, which may have affected her performance. The Pickles are not considered a professional league worthy of being included in official stats. However, it should be noted that her performance with Portland was impressive. She was signed to make a road trip to Mexico with the Pickles. In her appearance, she twirled five shutout innings and hit a double in her only at-bat.
More Than A Gimmick
As the first woman in the Pioneer League, Whitmore is more than a gimmick. She is accomplished in women’s baseball and softball as well, and played softball at Cal State-Fullerton, which didn’t offer her the chance to play baseball. She hit .395/.507/.824 with the Titans and was named 2021 Field Player of the Year. Whitmore was also a member of Team USA from 2014-23, competing in the Pan-Am Games and winning a gold medal.
Whitmore hails from Temecula, California. She throws right-handed and is a switch-hitter. At five feet six inches and 130 pounds, she makes a different kind of history as possibly the first woman ever to reveal her weight.
The Mighty Babe Strikes Out
Previously, appearances by women on the diamond have been gimmicks. The first noteworthy such gimmick involved 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell. The Brooklyn Robins’ Dazzy Vance was a neighbor who took a liking to her and taught her how to pitch. She got her chance with the Chatanooga Lookouts of the Southern League in 1931. Lookouts owner Joe Engel, who never met a publicity stunt he didn’t like and once traded a shortstop for a turkey, persuaded the mighty New York Yankees to come to Chatanooga for two exhibition games on their way north from spring training. He announced that the lefty Mitchell would be facing the great Babe Ruth.
Not immodestly, Mitchell proclaimed, “I’ll do my best with plenty of pep and with my mind made up to one thing – to fan Babe Ruth.” Initially scheduled for April 1, the game was postponed to the next day due to cold weather. The game began with Lookouts starter Clyde Barfoot giving up a double and a single. The Lookouts manager then brought Mitchell into the game to face Ruth. Two mighty swings and misses by the Babe sandwiched two balls. Ruth reacted angrily on the 2-2 pitch when the umpire called him out on strikes. Mitchell then struck out Lou Gehrig and walked Tony Lazzeri before being removed.
Whether the two strikeouts were staged is a secret that has died with the participants. In a column for United News, Mitchell revealed her “secret” to pitching to Ruth and said she hoped to pitch in the World Series someday. However, baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract and banned women from major and minor league baseball, proclaiming it “too strenuous.” MLB lifted the ban in 1992. There’s room for Whitmore to become the first woman in MLB besides the Pioneer League.
“Radical Changes”
After Mitchell pitched against the Yankees, columnist Ralph Davis of The Pittsburgh Press conveyed what was probably the prevalent attitude of the time, writing of the “radical changes” that would have to occur if women entered professional baseball. It would involve “special women’s dressing rooms with powder puffs, beauty creams, sunburn lotions and all that.” Teams would need chaperones, he wrote further, and male players would have to watch their language. The horrors!
Enter The AAGPBL
With the war raging in 1942, several minor league teams disbanded due to players being drafted. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley feared that MLB would similarly collapse. To fill the void, he began the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Wrigley had difficulty getting other MLB cities to support the idea. Thus, the league was confined to a handful of teams in the Midwest.
This, too, was essentially a gimmick, at least at first. Players were chosen based on looks as much as baseball ability. The strategy was to market them as “girl-next-door” types. Baseball greats such as Jimmie Foxx and Max Carey were recruited as managers to give the AAGPBL legitimacy. After the 1944 season, when it became obvious that MLB wouldn’t fold, Wrigley sold the league to ad-man Arthur Meyerhoff. Gradually, the emphasis was more on real baseball and less on sex appeal. It began as a glorified softball league, with underhand pitching mandated. In 1946, it allowed “limited sidearm” before requiring sidearm exclusively in 1947. The AAGPBL finally allowed overhand pitching in 1948 until it disbanded after the 1954 season.
The Last Word
There were a few other instances of women encroaching on men’s baseball, but now the reader gets the idea. This is the backdrop against which Whitmore has become the first woman in the Pioneer League. What better place for a pioneer than the Pioneer League? With her struggles, perseverance, and the need to rely on pinpoint control to succeed in men’s baseball, Whitmore’s appeal is that of an “everyman” – or perhaps we should say “everywoman.” It’s easy to imagine male and female baseball fans in the Bay Area pulling for her.
Meanwhile, the Pickles will be holding Cheese Night on June 4. They promise “extra porta potties” for the event. Get your tickets now. Or, on second thought, maybe not.
Main Photo Credits: Joe Hughes / USA TODAY NETWORK
