USA's Kelsie Whitmore became the first woman to start a game in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. Whitmore, 24, played left field and batted ninth for the Staten Island FerryHawks against the Gastonia HoneyHunters. The Hunters won, 10-5.
"It's a great feeling," Whitmore told Rick Farlow of the Charleston Gazette-Mail. "Any time on a ball field, it's the best feeling ever, and being surrounded by guys that have played at very high levels, major league level, minor league level, it's great to be surrounded by them, be a part of them."
Although she already made history, Whitmore isn't done with professional baseball yet. "The goal is to get past this," she commented. "To keep going, to get to affiliated ball as far as I possibly can."
Whitmore made her international baseball debut for World No. 4 USA as a 16-year-old at the WBSC Women's Baseball World Cup 2014. She had a couple of at-bats and entered otherwise as a pinch-runner. The United States earned a silver medal behind Japan.
The US finished seventh in the 2016 edition of the World Cup where Whitmore appeared in two games as a pitcher and in five games as a position player, starting twice in left field.
In the 2018 World Cup, she earned two wins as a pitcher, against Korea and the Dominican Republic while also starting four games in the outfield and entered as a pinch hitter in the bronze medal game the US lost against Canada.
After the World Cup, she began her sophomore year at Cal State Fullerton, playing for the softball Titans mainly as a pinch-runner. She became a starting outfielder in 2019 when she played 24 games in her senior season before the COVID-19 outbreak forced NCAA to cancel it. She majored in Kinesiology.
Whitmore's career as a professional baseball player started in 2016 when she played for the Sonoma Stompers of the independent Pacific League. She had 26 plate appearances in two seasons and pitched three innings.
The FerryHawks manager is Edgardo Alfonso, who started at second base for the New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB).
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