Kelsie Whitmore made extra historical past on Thursday evening when she was picked first total by the San Francisco franchise within the Ladies’s Professional Baseball League inaugural draft.
Lower than an hour later, Livermore’s Arwen McCullough had her dream come true when she additionally grew to become a part of her new hometown staff’s history-making draft class.
Whitmore, 27, already has sturdy Bay Space ties and has lengthy been a pioneer for ladies in baseball. In 2016, she and Stacy Piagno performed for the unbiased Sonoma Stompers on the Pacific Affiliation, turning into the primary feminine teammates in a males’s league for the reason that Nineteen Fifties. Two summers in the past, Whitmore grew to become the primary girl within the historical past of the unbiased Pioneer League to start out a recreation as a pitcher, enjoying for the Oakland Ballers. Final season she performed for the barnstorming Savannah Bananas.
Oakland Ballers’ Kelsie Whitmore (9) high-fives Oakland Ballers’ Dondrei Hubbard (20) earlier than a recreation in opposition to the Boise Hawks at Raimondi Park in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (Shae Hammond/Bay Space Information Group)
The four-team WPBL, which additionally contains Los Angeles, Boston and New York, might be based mostly out of Springfield, Illinois, this summer time. However Whitmore wasted no time reaching out to the growth staff’s Bay Space fan base.
“If you asked a six-year-old version of me (about) this opportunity and that it’s happening right now, she would one, probably not believe you, but two, just be so so so so excited for it,” Whitmore mentioned on the reside stream of the draft. “I’m simply grateful for the chance. And I’m excited to be representing town of San Francisco. And the place all of it started for me. The primary skilled staff I ever performed for was within the Bay Space, for the Sonoma Stompers. I’m actually excited to have the ability to return there and form of simply characterize town of San Francisco.
“And y’all be ready because we’re going to win a championship for you guys.”
Along with Whitmore, San Francisco chosen two different members of final summer time’s Group USA girls’s baseball staff amongst its first six picks. With the No. 9 total choose, they chose shortstop Joely Leguizamon, who performed for the Dominican Republic within the Pan American Video games.
Los Angeles took Japanese ace Ayami Sato with the second total choose. Sato, 36, has led Japan to 5 Ladies’s Baseball World Cup titles and was the primary girl to play in a males’s league in Canada. Los Angeles additionally drafted Mo’Ne Davis, the Little League hero in 2014 from Pennsylvania, with the No. 10 total choose.
Mo’ne Davis pitches throughout the first day of tryouts for the Ladies’s Skilled Baseball League, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, on the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington. (AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
With the a hundred and fifth total choose, San Francisco chosen McCullough, a right-handed pitcher who grew up enjoying baseball in Livermore — and idolizing Giants stars Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey. After two seasons on the Granada Excessive softball staff she enrolled at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the place she helped set up the college’s first girls’s baseball membership staff. This spring the Mustangs received the nationwide championship. Thursday evening, McCullough was her hometown staff’s twenty seventh total draft choose.
“I’m excited not only for my generation, but especially for the younger girls,” the 21-year-old McCullough mentioned earlier this week. “It gives them players they can look up to. Show them they can play baseball.”
San Francisco grabbed one other Northern California product, Sebastopol shortstop Kaija Bazzano, with its twentieth total choose.
The WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, who grew to become the primary girl to teach in MLB with the Oakland A’s in 2015. That is greatest try at a full-scale girls’s league for the reason that All-American Women Skilled Baseball League that existed from 1943 to 1954 and was immortalized within the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”
Justine Siegal throws reside batting follow to a few of the Oakland A’s throughout spring coaching exercises at Papago Baseball Park Complicated in Phoenix, Ariz., on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011. Siegal, 36, was an assistant coach for the Springfield (Mass.) School baseball staff from 2007-10. A Cleveland native and lifelong Indians fan, Siegal can be the founding father of Baseball For All, a company that goals to broaden alternatives for ladies in baseball. (Dan Honda/Employees)
Every of the 4 groups chosen 30 gamers on Thursday, however energetic rosters will go simply 15 deep. The seven-week season is scheduled to start out August 1, together with an all-star competitors and two weeks of playoffs.
There have been greater than 120 gamers eligible for the draft, representing ten international locations. That draft pool was decreased from greater than 600 gamers who participated within the league’s tryouts this summer time at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. Different gamers had been recognized by means of movies and in-person scouting.
San Francisco chosen gamers from six completely different international locations and will doubtlessly discipline a United Nations Opening Day infield of Canada’s Andreanne LeBlanc at first base, Group USA veteran Amanda Gianelloni (their second total choose) at second, the Domincan’s Leguizamon at shortstop and Japan’s Ayaka Yamamoto at third.
Juliette Kladko, heart, pitches throughout the third day of tryouts for the Ladies’s Skilled Baseball League, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2025, on the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington. (AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Thursday’s draft consisted of six rounds, with every staff deciding on 5 gamers per spherical. The San Francisco franchise acquired the primary total choose after a random draw. Los Angeles picked second, adopted by New York and Boston. The draft operated in a snake-order format – the staff that picked final in a single flip picked first within the subsequent.
The draft was streamed reside on the WPBL’s web site in addition to the social media platform X and the league’s Instagram, TikTok and YouTube channels. There additionally had been a number of a number of viewing events across the nation, together with at Rikki’s Bar in San Francisco and the Milestone Tavern in San Luis Obispo, the place McCullough additionally served because the host.
“I found baseball when the Giants made the World Series (in 2010, ’12 and ’14) and I always wanted to play it,” McCullough mentioned. “It’s been my heart and my sport.”
Summer time Hill (23), Celicia Wilken (1), Amanda Gianelloni (10), Denae Benites (16), SarahBeaulieu (37) and different gamers heat up throughout the third day of tryouts for the Ladies’s Skilled Baseball League, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2025, on the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington. (AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
San Francisco’s draft class
1st choose — Kelsie Whitmore, RHP (27) — San Diego, CA, USA2 – Amanda Gianelloni, 2B (28) — New Orleans, LA, USA3 – Joely Leguizamon, SS (26) — Dominican Republic4- Jill Albayati, RHP/UTL (21) — Anaheim, CA, USA5 – Samantha Gutierrez, C (22) — San Diego, CA, USA6 – Ayaka Yamamoto, 3B (21) — Fukuyama, Japan7 – Niki Eckert, LHP (22) — Tarrytown, NY, USA8- Andreanne Leblanc, 1B (24) — Mont-Saint-Hilaire, QC, Canada9 – Jua Park, SS (20) — Hadong, South Korea10 – Alexia Jorge, C (22) — Lyndhurst, NJ, USA11 – Ela Day-Bedard, IF (20) — Gatineau, QC, Canada12 – Rosa Del Castillo, CF (26) — Puebla, Mexico13 – Elizabeth Gilder, LHP (24) — New Westminster, BC, Canada14 – Skylar Kaplan, LF (24) — Glen Burnie, MD, USA15 – Hinano Beppu, 2B (29) — Kitakyushu Metropolis, Japan16 – Jordan Eyster, CF (21) — Royal Oak, MI, USA17 – Katie Reynolds, RHP (24) — Watertown, MA, USA18 – Peyton Coria, RHP (19) — Perris, CA, USA19 – Hanna Miura, 2B (22) — Sapporo, Japan20 – Kaija Bazzano, SS (23) — Sebastopol, CA, USA21 – Kaelei Kajitani, 1B (21) — Madera, CA, USA22 – Kiley Ingram, RHP (18) — Ontario, CA, USA23 – Scrappy Hopkins, C (27) — Fort Walton Seaside, FL, USA24 – Flor Elena Valerio Montoya, RHP (23) — Tijuana, Mexico25 – Esthela Segovia, C (31) — Tijuana, Mexico26 – Bella Espinoza-Molina, RF (23) — Ladera Ranch, CA, USA27 – Arwen McCullough, RHP (21) — Livermore, CA, USA28 – Allie Lacey, 2B (31) — La Crescenta, CA, USA29 – Micaela Minner, 1B (40) — Akron, OH, USA30 –Kailyn Bearpaw, 1B (22) — Sapulpa, OK, USA
