58 Time March 15/March 22, 2021
her, making clear the job was hers. Ng
paused. Jeter wondered why she wasn’t
joyous. “In work contexts, that’s one of
your tools, that people don’t necessar-
ily know what you’re thinking,” Ng says.
“I’ve trained myself to do that. Plus, I was
just in disbelief.”
Finally, she smiled. Many others did
too. A group chat of women in baseball—
about 80 strong—buzzed when the news
of Ng’s hiring broke. “It’s important for
people like me to have female bosses and
role models and mentors,” says Jennifer
Wolf, life skills coordinator for the Cleve-
land Indians. “But it’s also important for
girls who are growing up now, and boys
growing up now, to see that being a per-
son in a leadership role is not limited to
white men.”
Samantha DiGennaro, a PR-firm CEO
who played softball with Ng at the Uni-
versity of Chicago, was leading a Zoom
meeting when she spotted the news on her
cell phone. (She cops to defying her own
no- looking-at-phones edict.) “I started
welling up a little bit,” she says. “They were
tears of joy, tears of pride, tears of nostal-
gia from my years playing on the field with
her. But they were also tears of reckon-
ing. For every woman who has a dream.”
Before her hiring was announced
to the public, Ng summoned her four
younger sisters to their mother’s senior
community in New Jersey. Sitting on lawn
chairs near a gazebo, Ng played them a
clip on her iPad of Jeter presenting her
with the award from all those years ago.
“I’m scratching my head, thinking, Why is
she doing this?” says Cagar. Then Ng told
her family that she and her husband were
moving to Miami. “Some faces among her
sisters lit up,” Cagar says. “They’re a little
faster than I am.” Ng told her mother that
Jeter had hired her to be Miami’s GM.
Although COVID-19 precluded the kind
of group hug you see after the final out
of the World Series, they all screamed
in unison and jumped in place. Cagar
uttered three words.
“Long. Time. Coming.”
The ouTpouring of supporT sur-
prised Ng. She says at least 500 people
have told her they are now Marlins fans.
Sheryl Sandberg reached out on email.
So did Ng’s eye doctor from the early
1990s: “He said, ‘This is Dr. So-and-So
from Lens Crafters.’ ” Cagar visited her
dentist a few months ago wearing a Mar-
lins mask. “She looked at me,” Cagar
says. “And I kind of gave her the eye
signal.” Gloating time, once again. Yes,
Cagar told her, Kim Ng is my daughter.
“And she was delighted,” says Cagar.
Some see significance beyond gen-
der. “For MLB, China is a potentially
huge market,” the South China Morn-
ing Post wrote in a November edito-
rial. “With Joe Biden as President-elect,
some Chinese hope there will be a reset
of bilateral relations. Sport often makes
great diplomacy. And who can be more
inspiring at the moment than Chinese-
American Kim Ng?”
Her task—building the Marlins into
a consistent winner—won’t be easy. Ng
won’t have the big-market resources that
were available to her in New York or Los
Angeles: Miami typically ranks in the
bottom third of MLB clubs in payroll.
South Florida has been a boom-and-bust
baseball market, mostly bust: although
the Marlins went on out-of- nowhere
runs to World Series titles in 1997 and
2003, the team has finished 21 of its 28
seasons— including every single year in
the 2010s—with a losing record. (The
team was 31-29 and won a playoff series
in the abbreviated 2020 season.)
With the ongoing pandemic, workingconditions aren’t ideal. Her first team-
wide address, to some 140 Marlins play-
ers and staffers throughout the organi-
zation, was on Zoom. “Your teammates
will rely on you more this year than in
any other year,” she told them, “because
much of this is about staying safe, and
keeping your teammates safe.” Dur-
ing Miami’s first day of full-team spring
training in February, Ng moved around
the fields, watching batting practice
from the first-base dugout, checking out
bullpen throwing sessions. “I was really
trying not to make them nervous in any
way,” says Ng. “Unfortunately, I’m pretty
easy to pick out in a crowd of people.”
Ng knows more eyes are now on the
Marlins, thanks to her historic role. “I
think there are degrees by which I will
be judged,” Ng says. “If the Marlins don’t
make it to the World Series, I don’t think
people are going to see it as a failure.”
She pauses. “I’m sure Derek will see it
as a failure,” she says with a laugh. “But
look, I also have great confidence. I don’t
think we’re going to fail. We all want the
same thing. And that’s to bring another
world championship to Miami.”
On that victory plane, there will be no
question what she’s doing there. Every-
one will know Kim Ng. —With reporting
by BarBara maddux □^
Ng greets Miami Marlins prospect Cameron Barstad on
Feb. 18, the opening day of spring training, in Jupiter, Fla.Sports