approaching her. “I didn’t want to
be weird,” she says, laughing.
Melissa Lambert, the assistant
director of behavioral science for
the Royals, has never met Ng, but
she tries to emulate her. “She’s not
a f lashy person,” Lambert says.
“But she’s well respected in the
game. You look at her résumé:
She’s worked her way up the
ladder.” The lesson Lambert takes
from this is that she can findsuccess in the game if she works
hard and remains patient. Many
women in the sport can point to
individual words or ideas like this.
But for many of them, just knowing
that Ng is there means more than
anything else.
“She has been deeply impactful
to me,” Balkovec says. “I don’t
think she even really knows
that. She and Raquel [Ferreira,
senior VP and assistant GM of
the Red Sox] and Jean [Afterman,
who holds the same title with the
Yankees] have really impacted my
idea of what’s possible for me.”MLB posted to social media a
rendering of a young girl watching
news coverage of Ng’s hiring. Many
women in baseball retweeted it and
posted it on Instagram. They loved
the idea that kids—girls and boys—
will now be able to see that women
belong in baseball. But they are also
happy that adults will see the same
thing. “It’s amazing that Kim is the
first one, and we’re so excited for
her,” says Jen Wolf, the Indians’ lifeskills coordinator. “But it’s almost
as important that there’s a second,
third and fourth female GM.”
Afterman laughs at that idea.
“There are some men in the game
that are probably terrified that
there’s going to be a f lood of girls,”
she says. But she hopes that the
Marlins’ decision makes it easier
for other franchises to take that
step. “Kudos to them,” she says,
“because I think it takes foresight
and intelligence to recognize
somebody’s talents and to hire the
best person for the job and not give
a s--- about the other stuff. And ISCORECARDthink that there’s been perhaps a
failure of that kind of courage in
other organizations.”
Most of the women currently
working in the game have
experienced a day a bit like
Nov. 13, when Ng was hired: an
announcement of their new job,
followed by a f lood of messages.
They were always thrilled to see
how much their hire meant to other
people. But, Balkovec likes to say,
when she was hired,
she felt a bit like a
sophomore in high
school with everyone
trying to throw her a
graduation party.
Ng alluded to that
feeling during her
press conference
three days after
she was hired by
Miami. She said that
when she got the
job, she felt as if a
10,000- pound weight
had been lifted from
one shoulder. About
half an hour later,
she realized it had
been transferred to
the other one.
The world will be watching as
Ng tries to guide the Marlins to a
title. They made a surprise charge
to the playoffs this past season
and boast a talented young roster.
But Ng must also contend with
an ownership group that has not
yet shown a willingness to spend.
Being a general manager is hard
under the easiest of circumstances,
and trailblazing is not the easiest
of circumstances.
Once she stopped crying,
Waldman sent Ng a long text of
congratulations. It ended: “Now get
to work. You have a team to run.”DECEMBER 2020 27TRENDSETTERS
Waldman (right) has been the Yanks’ color commentator since 2005, while the
Giants’ Alyssa Nakken became MLB’s first female on-field coach last spring.JO
HN
W.
MC
DO
NO
UG
H^ (
NA
KK
EN
);^ C
HU
CK
SO
LO
MO
N^ (
WA
LD
MA
N)