Rachel Balkovec Makes History as the First Female Manager in Minor League Baseball

Mike Janes/Four Seam Images via AP

Rachel Balkovec will make history as the first female manager of a minor league baseball team.

The 34-year-old former college softball catcher — who first joined the New York Yankees' organization as a minor league hitting coach in 2019 — will make the move to manage the Low-A Tampa Tarpons next season, ESPN reports.

Prior to her gig with the Yankees' organization, Balkovec started her professional baseball career in 2012 as a strength and conditioning coach at a St. Louis Cardinals minor league affiliate, per The Athletic.

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From there, she pivoted to the Houston Astros, where she took on the role of the Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator, followed by a run as the strength and conditioning coach with the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks.

In 2018, Balkovec to a break from baseball to pursue a second master's degree at Vrije University in the Netherlands. It was there that she also lent her expertise to the country's national baseball and softball teams.

Balkovec found herself back in the States when she took a fellowship with Driveline Baseball, a baseball player development program, which led to her role within the Yankees' organization.

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In 2019, she spoke to the Associated Press about the hurdles she had to overcome as a woman in a male-driven sport. "I view my path as 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 said at the time.

"My mom always used to say, life's not fair," Balkovec added. "So, is it fair? No. Does it matter? No. You have to keep standing at that door banging on it."

Balkovec's position in New York made her the first female full-time hitting coach in an MLB organization, according to the MLB website.

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"I'm not the first woman to have a position in baseball, but I know this is a little different," Balkovec said when she got the position. "I'm a product of the women who have come before me in sports. If somebody thinks I'm a trailblazer, great, because hopefully that's creating an opportunity to think it's possible for [others]."