Australian teenager Genevieve Beacom has made headlines around the world after becoming the first woman to pitch and play in the Australian Baseball League.
The 17-year-old impressed as she threw a scoreless sixth inning for the Melbourne Aces in their Melbourne Challenge Series against the Adelaide Giants.
During her inning, the leadoff hitter reached base before the teenager notched two groundouts. The scoreless inning later ended with a flyout.
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Beacom’s inning was the highlight of the evening despite the Aces losing 7-1 to the Giants last night.
“When I got out there, I just wanted to shut down [and stop] the runs,” Beacom said after the match.
“They had some momentum and my goal was to just stop the runs from scoring.”
The left-hander’s debut occurred after recently putting pen to paper on a development contract at the start of this month.
Beacom’s debut has been well-documented, with major US media outlets including MLB.com, The Washington Post and Sports Illustrated all covering the teenager’s performance.
Former Australian MLB pitcher Peter Moylan, who now manages The Aces, lauded Beacom’s moment.
“I’ve been lucky enough to witness so many cool things in baseball, this was one of my favourites,” Moylan tweeted.
https://twitter.com/PeterMoylan/status/1479791567132975104
Australia’s professional baseball league is well respected by pundits across the globe.
The ABL has seen the likes of Ronald Acuna Jr., Liam Hendriks, Didi Gregorius, Kevin Kiermaier, Ji-Man Choi, Rhys Hoskins, Adam Engel all feature in the competition, all of which have featured in the MLB.
https://twitter.com/MiLB/status/1479904718755348482
“If anyone tries to push you to do something you don’t want to do, push you to softball, or to play a sport that you ‘should’ be playing, don’t listen,” Beacom added.
“Do what you want to do and just know that if you work hard enough you can definitely make it somewhere. It’s not impossible. You can see, it can be done.”
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