Yankees general manager Brian Cashman hopes there will come a day when hiring a female manager won’t be such a newsworthy item.
His organization’s recent hire in Rachel Balkovec agrees.
The 34-year-old was officially introduced as the Tampa Tarpons (the Yankees’ Low-A affiliate) manager on Wednesday, marking the first-ever female managerial hire in minor league history. The news broke on Monday, leading to criticism and skepticism throughout social media regarding her credentials to take on the job. Such backlash isn’t necessarily a surprise from certain pockets of self-declared baseball gatekeepers, but Balkovec believes her resume and path to pro baseball should make her hiring as sensible as it is groundbreaking.
“I’ve been in baseball for 10 years,” Balkovec said. “It’s a little interesting that there’s so much attention now, but obviously, society has changed. The world has changed. We’re celebrating women in sports in general a lot more than we ever were in 2012 when I first got in. but the comments and some of the negativity that I hear more from my sisters than I actually read, I think it’s interesting.”
Of course, skepticism is a familiar hurdle for Balkovec. She changed the name on her resume from “Rachel” to “Rae” in order to get more callbacks, and even still was told by some that they wouldn’t hire a woman. She broke into the sport in 2012 as a strength and conditioning coach with the Cardinals organization. Still, by 2018, she was studying physics flash cards on a Double-A women’s bathroom floor, unable to fit in inside the clubhouse. A year later, she was sleeping on a mattress that she pulled out of a dumpster in Amsterdam as she pursued her second master’s degree. Shortly after, she was hired by the Yankees as a minor league hitting instructor, becoming the first female full-time hitting instructor by a major league club.
“If you know my story, and you have a pulse, it's pretty hard to not get behind what's going on here,” Balkovec said. “If you know yourself and where you came from, it doesn’t really matter. That’s how I deal with the negativity coming my way. It’s hilarious to me because this is the American Dream.”
Balkovec certainly put in the work, learning Spanish to connect with her players when she was a strength and conditioning coach with the Astros. Having blazed her own trail, Balkovec doesn’t need the approval of skeptics when she has an entire clubhouse and organization in her corner, who have seen her work up close.
“That’s fine, I don’t need that,” Balkovec said of others’ approval. “I have players texting me right now saying congratulations and how happy they are, and it’s like ‘OK, I don’t need other people to understand it.’ Just focusing on the Yankees and the players and coaches within the organization.”
As for those players in the organization, Balkovec is more than confident that she will have the level of respect to demand greatness from future Yankees, including one of the team’s most hyped prospect in recent memory in Jasson Dominguez.
“It’s gonna be high standards and very clear standards,” Balkovec said. “If something goes on that’s not for the good of the team, they’re gonna hear it from me.”
Balkovec still maintains high standards for herself as well, even after making baseball history. She hopes to one day be in Cashman’s position, as a major league general manager making her own historic hires. For now, she is already a beacon of hope for women trying to forge a path into baseball, something she refuses to hide from.
“I don’t think you signed your name on the dotted line to do something like this and then say ‘Well, I don’t want to be a role model,’” Balkovec said. “I don’t subscribe to that…I want to be a visible idea for young women. I want to be a visible idea for dads that have daughters. I want to be out there.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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