Kelsie Whitmore and Stacy Piagno are making history with the Sonoma Stompers, who have signed the two USA Women's National team members to contracts. They will start for Sonoma July 1st.
JP Raineri/Rob Furtrell
Originally Published: The Huffington Post
Thomas Lipe, Sports Department Intern
The Sonoma Stompers, a baseball team in the independent Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, has just done something not seen in pro baseball since the 1950s: They have signed two female players.
The Stompers announced on Tuesday that they signed 17-year-old outfielder and pitcher Kelsie Whitmore and 25-year-old pitcher Stacy Piagno. Whitmore and Piagno, who respectively graduated from Temecula Valley High School and the University of Tampa, will also be teammates on Team USA at the upcoming Women’s Baseball World Cup in Japan.
In its press release, the team announced it would become the first co-ed professional baseball team since Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson and Constance Morgan joined the Negro American League‘s Indianapolis Clowns in the 1950s.
“We hope this sends a message to the rest of the baseball world that there is room for women and girls in this game — from Little League to the Major Leagues,” Stompers GM Theo Fightmaster said in a release.
The move by the Stompers comes just after the one-year anniversary of France’s 16-year-old Melissa Mayeux becoming the first woman on the MLB’s international registration list. Whitmore and Piagno will be in uniform for the first time on Friday, July 1.