WBSC Women's Baseball World Cup star Kelsie Whitmore will play the 2024 season for the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer League.
In 2022, Whitmore became the first woman to start a game in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball when she played left field and batted ninth for the Staten Island FerryHawks against the Gastonia HoneyHunters. The Hunters won, 10-5. She appeared in 11 games as a pitcher and 30 as an outfielder in 2022; as well as 13 as a pitcher and 25 as an outfielder in 2023.
In 2016 and 2017 she played for the Sonoma Stompers of the Pacific Association
Since 2021, the Pioneer League has been a Partner League of Major League Baseball (MLB), providing players with less than three years of professional experience the opportunity to be scouted by MLB clubs and allowing MLB to experiment with new rules on the field. MLB recently announced that the agreement with the Pioneer League will run through the 2028 season.
The Ballers will debut in the 2024 Pioneer League against the Glacier Range Riders on Tuesday, 21 May.
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.
USA finished seventh in the 2016 edition of the World Cup, where Whitmore appeared in two games as a pitcher and 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. She also entered as a pinch hitter in the bronze medal game the US lost against Canada.
She earned a win as a pitcher and started four games in centre field in last year's Women's Baseball World Cup Group A, helping the US win the group and qualify for the 2024 Finals presented by CARNEXT, which are scheduled from 28 July to 3 August in Thunder Bay, Canada.
