A pitching debut for the history books

Genevieve Beacom made history Friday night when she took the mound for the Melbourne Aces, becoming the first woman to pitch in the Australian Baseball League.

A 17-year-old left-hander, Beacom threw a scoreless sixth inning for the Aces in its Melbourne Challenge series game against the Adelaide Giants, showing an impressive fastball-curveball mix.

For Beacom, playing in the ABL is no small feat. The league has featured dozens of future MLB players, with Ronald Acuña Jr., Liam Hendriks, Didi Gregorius, Kevin Kiermaier, Ji-Man Choi, Rhys Hoskins, Adam Engel and Andrew Kittredge among the notable ABL alumni.

As she continues to pursue her baseball dreams, Beacom has some advice for young girls looking to do the same.

“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 said after the game. “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.”

The Aces, the ABL champions in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, are managed by Australia native and former Major League Baseball pitcher Peter Moylan, who said in a tweet that Beacom’s debut was one of his favorite things he’s witnessed in baseball.