A sports first and hardly anyone took notice

reader · October 1, 2023

NOTE -- Kudos to PaulSF, a good friend and sports aficionado first class for bringing this to my attention.

When the Miami Marlins yesterday beat the Pittsburgh Pirates to clinch a spot in the divisional playoffs baseball playoffs, few were aware that the team's general manager, Kim Ng, is not only the first woman general manager in Major League Baseball history but the daughter of mixed east Asian ancestry (mother from Thailand and father of Cantonese descent). Her unlikely rise in a man's game had very early roots when she accepted a post with the Chicago White Sox in 1990. The rest is for the history books.

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From Time magazine

Kim Ng took her seat on the chartered jet. As assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, she was joining the team on a road trip in 2008. Soon the Dodgers players started filing onto the plane, and a flight attendant began taking drink orders from staffers. When she reached Ng—pronounced Ang, rhymes with Hang—the flight attendant leaned in close. “So what did you do to get on this plane?” she asked.

After nearly two decades in baseball front offices, Ng had become accustomed to the condescending glances, outright hostility and attempts at intimidation that come with being the only woman in the room. But this was, well, something else entirely. So Ng decided, as she had so many times in her professional life, to have some fun with the situation.

“Do you really want to know?” Ng said conspiratorially, teasing a salacious secret.

“Yeaaah,” the flight attendant replied, barely containing her enthusiasm.

“See all these guys?” Ng said.

“Yeaaah.”

“They all work for me,” Ng said.

Speaking during a video interview from a hotel room in Miami where she had been staying for the past month or so, Ng laughs recalling this conversation. “She slinked away,” Ng says. “The point was, Why are you asking me this?”

Ng was named the general manager of the Miami Marlins in November, becoming the first female GM in the history of major North American men’s pro team sports and the first East Asian American to lead a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. She had interviewed for GM positions at least 10 times over the years, only to be passed over for someone else. But her hiring by the Marlins was not just a personal victory—it was widely celebrated as a breakthrough with the potential to place more women in traditionally male power roles, in baseball and beyond.

Richard Lapchick, whose Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida publishes an annual report grading the hiring practices of sports leagues—MLB most recently got a C for gender hiring—hails Nov. 13, 2020, the day that Ng’s new position was announced, as the “most note-worthy day for baseball since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.” Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton sent Ng kudos via Twitter; two of Ng’s inspirations when she was growing up, Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, also cheered the enormity of the moment on social media. On the night of President Joe Biden’s Inauguration, Ng even participated in the virtual festivities, sharing words from Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Inaugural Address celebrating peaceful presidential transitions. “It is unbelievable yet totally deserving that Kim has ascended to a position of power, influence and leadership,” King tells TIME. “Kim Ng being a GM of a major sports team is a strong indication that if you can see it, you can be it.”

Ng, 52, grew up playing stickball in Queens, N.Y. One manhole cover served as home plate, a parked car to the right was first base, another manhole cover down the street was second, and a parked car to the left was third. She was always the only girl. “I grew up a tomboy, for sure,” Ng says. “Always the oddity.”

Her father, who died when Kim was 11, had introduced his daughter to baseball. She slept under a poster, sponsored by Burger King, of the 1978 World Series champion New York Yankees. Baseball’s slow pace—the average sports fan’s biggest complaint about the game these days—-actually drew her in. “It gave me time to ask questions,” Ng says. “It gave me time to socialize and to be curious, and not necessarily be completely entranced.”

When her family moved to Long Island, she took up organized softball. She was then the star of her team at Ridgewood High School in New Jersey and continued her career at the University of Chicago, where she hit .388 as a junior. She played multiple infield positions and emerged as the unquestioned team leader. “She was one of those loud people on the field,” says Rosalie Resch, an assistant athletic director during Ng’s years on campus. “There was no question how many outs there were.” In one photo from the time, Ng is kneeling at the front of the dugout, eyes honed in on the Chicago hitter, more immersed in the action than anyone else.

Ng playing softball at Ridgewood High School in 1986

Mike Grattini—USA TODAY NETWORK/Reuters

When her family moved to Long Island, she took up organized softball. She was then the star of her team at Ridgewood High School in New Jersey and continued her career at the University of Chicago, where she hit .388 as a junior. She played multiple infield positions and emerged as the unquestioned team leader. “She was one of those loud people on the field,” says Rosalie Resch, an assistant athletic director during Ng’s years on campus. “There was no question how many outs there were.” In one photo from the time, Ng is kneeling at the front of the dugout, eyes honed in on the Chicago hitter, more immersed in the action than anyone else.