BASEBALL: Kelsie Whitmore chases dream of being a pro baseball player – Press-Enterprise

BASEBALL: Kelsie Whitmore chases dream of being a pro baseball player

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Focus on your game, Kelsie Whitmore told herself. Just play ball.

It was a Friday, the first weekend of July, a few hours before Whitmore’s first game with the Sonoma Stompers, an independent-league men’s baseball team in California that plays in the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs.

Whitmore, a 5-foot-6 outfielder/pitcher, and teammate Stacy Piagno were making history. It was the first time since the 1950s that two women would play in a pro baseball game.

Whitmore, 17, felt eyes burning her. Dozens of questions flew at her. Microphones, cameras and recorders crowded her.

Everyone wanted a glimpse of the girl who aspires to play major league baseball.

Whitmore, who is headed to Cal State Fullerton this fall on a softball scholarship, made several plays in left field during her start that night. On June 20, Whitmore recorded her first hit as a professional, a sharp single through the right side of the infield. Two days later, she was the pitcher in the first all-female battery.

“The one thing that girls in baseball lack is opportunity. So when I got this opportunity, I didn’t let go,” she said of playing for Sonoma.

“I want to show that even if there are times I may be embarrassed because I’m the only girl, even if there are times that I may be scared because I feel uncomfortable, no matter what, I’m always going to go out there because I want it so bad,” Whitmore said.

Proving the doubters wrong

As a 6-year-old, Whitmore didn’t want to play catch with anyone but her father. “All she wanted to do was throw,” Scott Whitmore said.

After watching some girls play softball, she thought there was a rule that girls had to tie their hair in a ponytail. She wanted no part of that.

She wanted to play baseball with the boys.

“She’d get gifts that were dolls and stuff, and she’d get stuff that were balls and bats, and she’d always migrate to the balls and bats,” Scott said.

Whitmore devoted herself to the game as if it were religion, fascinated that she’d find something new to learn, to challenge herself with, each day at the field.

The Temecula native was the only girl on her Little League and PONY teams, and her high school team. “She’s kind of a legend in the Temecula area,” said Daniel Franklin, who coached Whitmore as a senior at Temecula Valley High. “All the kids know her.”