Scott Whitmore stood along the concourse on a recent spring night, watching the final round of the Staten Island Ferry Hawks home game end when the NYPD approached him from the third base side.
“Do you think you’ll get your daughter’s signature after the match?” The policeman secretly said.
Sure, Whitmore knew that the receiving line would be longer, but he laughed. With the exception of a handful of Yankees and Mets stars, New York’s most famous ball player this summer may be Staten Island’s pioneering two-way player, Kelsey Whitmore.
With a height of 5 feet 6 inches and black chestnut hair that stretches beyond her number, she can’t mistake FerryHawks bargains, warm up in the field, or sign. She is a rare sight in the league known for seizing opportunities and pushing buttons.
The Atlantic Professional Baseball League is widely regarded as the highest level of independent minor league baseball and hosts former All-Stars Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco and Rickey Henderson. However, the woman had never started or participated in an Atlantic League match until Whitmore, who did both. She is the first woman to play in a league affiliated with Major League Baseball since Lee Anketchum and Julie Croteau joined Maui Stingray in the Hawaii Winter Baseball League in 1994.
The league was about the same as a class A minor league ball, but the Atlantic Ocean is considered to be closer to class AAA and one step below the big league. At the age of 24, former California State Fullerton softball star Whitmore is challenging to stick to professional baseball.
For Whitmore, it represents a return to normal. She played softball because she was the only way to get a college scholarship. But she — always — is a baseball player, and she shares many obvious characteristics. She wears a cap pulled low, swings a 32.5 ounce bat, impulsively curses, and reflexively spits.
Her left forearm tattoo contains a Filipino image (a homage to her mother’s heritage), including a series of crocodile teeth representing an aggressive hunter lurking beneath a quiet, quiet façade. increase.
“It symbolizes me,” she said.
Whitmore has surprised defenseless baseball players since he was a teenager. She is the only girl on the Temecula Valley High School’s Varsity Baseball Team in Southern California, and at the age of 17, she was signed to play professionally in the independent league Pacific Association Sonoma Stompers. I was alone.
Currently, she is a team managed by former Mets player Edgardo Alfonzo and is alone in a league full of former major leaguers.
Women are also paving the way for baseball, a male-centered sport. This spring, Rachel Balcobeck of Tamper Tarpons became the first woman to manage in affiliated baseball. In March, Alexis Hopkins was drafted by the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball’s Kentucky Wild Health Genome to act as the team’s bullpen catcher.
However, Whitmore, who started twice with a left fielder and played four times on the mound, claims to be a player in professional baseball diamonds.
“It’s a milestone for us,” said MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred about Whitmore. “It gives you an honest and realistic example of what we have been enthusiastic about over the years. One day we will be women as professionals for us. You will start playing. “
Ponytail protest
After a recent night game was postponed due to the weather, Whitmore was at the stadium where some teammates worked out and negotiated who would run the chop cheese sandwich.
She suddenly stopped walking and found a way to jump over a puddle about eight feet wide formed on concrete. “I did a long jump in high school,” Whitmore shrugged.
Her athletic career also includes soccer, lacrosse, flag football and volleyball. She can clear 280 yards for £ 400 with a driver and a deadlift.
Was there a sport she had never tried?
“Cheers,” Whitmore said.
Physical education teacher Scott Whitmore said baseball was his daughter’s first love. At the age of six, Scott brought Kelsey to register for Little League, but she refused. She enjoyed catching balls and swings in her backyard.
“Finally, I said,’Why don’t you play with kids of your age?'” Said Scott Whitmore.
That’s because she thought she had to wear her hair with a ponytail. She preferred to leave it for a long time.
Her dad laughed and told her that she could wear her hair the way she wanted. Since then it has remained down.
“I think some of me would be like all the other girls if I had it,” Whitmore said. “It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t me.”
It’s not uncommon for girls to play Little League. But it didn’t take long for Whitmore to begin to recognize how gender the composition of baseball (boys) and softball (girls) was.
“You will hear the voice of a suspicious person,” said Scott Whitmore. “Hey, the boy will be stronger, and she won’t be able to hang with them.” They said at the age of 12, it never happened. “
Justin Seagull first saw Whitmore’s pitch at the age of fifteen. Seagull, the first woman to coach a major league organization, founded the non-profit Baseball For All to promote gender equality in baseball and provide opportunities for girls who want to play in youth teams. ..
From that first introduction, Ziegal continued to monitor Whitmore, perhaps for decades thinking she could be the one who breaks through professional baseball more than any other woman and goes even further.
“She had something special,” Ziegal said of Whitmore. “She was clear that she had the physical ability to compete.”
But in high school, Whitmore wondered if she had the mental stamina to push.
“I started to feel that way, shouldn’t I be here?” Whitmore said. “Am I not here? People keep asking me why I’m here, people are wondering, outsiders push me towards another route It’s about to start ruining my head. “
Solitude was also a factor. Always the only girl, outstanding, outliers. It became emotionally exhausting, she said.
“You just want to know that feeling of what it fits in,” Whitmore said.
She participated in a softball recruitment showcase despite her inability to secure a baseball scholarship and limited gaming experience. Her athleticism and baseball instinct proved sufficient to attract a flood of offers from coaches who thought she could shape her into a star in time.
She was recoiling to switch to softball. “That wasn’t what I wanted to do,” Whitmore said. “The high school softball team wanted me to play for them. To be honest, it’s like telling me to play soccer. In my head, it’s It’s a completely different sport. “
Still, college softball looked more attractive because Whitmore thought the spotlight might not have been so focused on her.
“If you play in a team full of girls, you’ll find that not everyone is always watching or wanting to change,” Whitmore said. “When I stepped into the softball field, I was like,’OK, cool, I’m finally part of them.’ “
‘case’
She was still different.
She acted like a baseball player, wearing a hat and baseball trousers. She had to relearn how to hit, determine the flyball, and swipe the bag. Even the bargain atmosphere was alien to her — the girls’ roster interacted differently than the men.
After the game, she slipped into the batting cage and cut the overhand pitcher. In the summer, after the Fullerton season was over, she pitched to the American Women’s Baseball National Team. “I told myself, this is just a temporary thing,” Whitmore said of softball.
She also contacted former Major League Baseball relief player Joe Beimel, who set up a training facility to speed up pitchers in Torrance, California. When Whitmore arrived, her fastball peaked at just over 70 mph.
“We had to take her at least in the 80’s,” Baymel said in a telephone interview. But he was impressed with her pitch movements.
Whitmore pitching arsenals include two seams, four seams, sliders, curves and more. “What she throws is this strange knuckleball change-up,” Baymel said.
Whitmore calls it a “thing” and the pitch is the source of the ferry hawks’ charm. Former teammate Julio Teherán, who had previously pitched for the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Angels and Detroit Tigers, was studying her grips before leaving for the Mexican League recently.
Whitmore never blows away professional batters (she currently throws in the late ’70s), but Eddie Medina, Ferry Hawks’ operations director who pushed her to sign, Whitmore upsets the batter’s balance. I felt I could do it.
Her pitching coach, former major leaguer Nelson Figueroa, succeeded despite the lack of speed and helped Whitmore adapt. In her second pitching appearance of the season, she allowed six runs with two-thirds innings during the pancross. She recorded her unscored innings on her recent appearance on June 5th.
The results are mixed, but fans cheer for her name and come to see her. Life in baseball means changing clothes in your changing room and taking a shower at the facility used by your team’s coach.
But she called her teammates her “big brother” and they replied to the hug.
She also has her dad around as a source of comfort and laughter. Scott Whitmore retired in late May, packed his car and drove across the country.
He didn’t mean to miss the match. “I’m going to spend the whole summer watching my daughter play baseball.”