baseball

Nakken stepped in for the ejected first-base coach Tuesday vs. Padres

by: Dayn Perry | CBS Sports

In the third inning of Tuesday night’s game between the Padres and Giants (SD-SF GameTracker), San Francisco’s Alyssa Nakken made MLB history when she stepped in to the fill the role of first-base coach.

Richardson was ejected in the top of the third by first-base umpire Greg Gibson while apparently instructing the defense. As for Nakken, here she is fulfilling some of the usual duties of the first-base coach.

Nakken, 31, has been a part of the Giants organization since 2014, when she started as an intern in baseball operations. She now serves as a major league assistant coach on manager Gabe Kapler’s staff. In the past, she’s worked on outfield and base-running instruction, and in January of 2020, she became the first woman to hold a full-time coaching position in MLB. 

“I feel it’s my job to honor those who have helped me get to where I am,” she told MLB.com not long after ascending to that position. “Coaching, I never saw it. This job has kind of been hidden for so long. I’m so excited to be in this role for the challenge and the opportunity to make an impact for this organization that I love. But also, I’m excited that now girls can see there is a job on the field in baseball. It’s really cool.”

Nakken previously coached first base during a “summer camp” exhibition game in July of 2020, but Tuesday marked the first time a woman has coached on the field in a regular-season game. 

By: Morgan Smith | CNBC

Rachel Balkovec will become the first female manager in affiliated professional baseball after the Yankees tapped her to lead the Tampa Tarpons, their Low-A affiliate team, according to the Athletic. 

This isn’t the first glass ceiling the 34-year-old has shattered in baseball, either. The Omaha native has been a professional baseball coach for 10 years and has often been the first woman to hold different jobs within the sport. 

The announcement comes after a series of other firsts for women in baseball over the last two years. Last year Bianca Smith made history as the first Black woman to coach in professional baseball after joining the Boston Red Sox staff and in 2020, Kim Ng became first female general manager of the MLB for the Miami Dolphins. 

Balkovec started her career in 2012 as a strength and conditioning coach for the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league team. She left in 2015 to be the Houston Astros’ Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator, making her the first woman to hold that position.

She took a few years off from American professional baseball to complete a master’s degree in biomechanics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and was hired by the Yankees shortly after graduating in 2019 as a minor-league hitting coach, becoming the first female full-time hitting coach in an MLB organization. 

Her interest in biomechanics has helped Balkovec better understand how to use science to improve players’ swings and movements. “For example, if there is a restriction in movement, can they spot those types of things,″ Balkovec said in 2019, according to the New York Post. 

She continued: “How is that going to affect their swing mechanics and the ability to get something done in a game situation? Also, the visual side of things, what are the best strategies of things [like] picking up the ball for recognizing a pitch?”

Balkovec, who was a catcher for the softball teams at Creighton University and the University of New Mexico, has called the challenges she has faced while working in a male-dominated sport “an advantage.” 

“I had to do probably much more than maybe a male counterpart, but I like that because I’m so much more prepared for the challenges that I might encounter,” she told the Associated Press in 2019. 

It’s also important, Balkovec added, to be persistent and not lose hope in the face of unequal opportunities. 

“My mom always used to say, life’s not fair,” she told the Associated Press. “So is it fair? No. Does it matter? No. You have to keep standing at that door banging on it.”