Bianca Smith made Major League Baseball history on New Years Eve.
The Boston Red Sox hired her to work with their minor league hitters, making her the first Black female coach ever in professional baseball. But the 29-year-old’s trailblazing goals are much higher than that.
Smith also wants to one day become an MLB manager.
“I want to go as high as I can,” Smith told The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey in a piece published Thursday. “I want to continue to challenge myself and right now, yes, that is MLB manager. I don’t see that (goal) changing anytime soon.”
Smith’s hiring came after news of the Miami Marlins hiring MLB’s first female general manager, Kim Ng, who Smith herself is a huge fan of.
The two women are equally as qualified and impressive, too.
Smith attended Dartmouth College where she briefly played Division 1 softball before injuries led to her managing the men’s baseball team. She then flipped internships with the Texas Rangers and MLB commissioner’s office into opportunity after opportunity.
“It takes hard work and even though it’s changing in the game, there’s still this idea that you need some kind of playing experience and a lot of women don’t have that, specifically baseball,” Smith said, via The Athletic. “But it does say how hard it is to get into this game as a woman. Having to do more to prove that you can provide as much value as any other man coming in too.”
Smith, and those who have continued to put her in the positions she’s been promoted to, know she couldn’t be the furthest thing from a token hire.
But she is aware of the responsibility she takes upon herself from all the little girls looking up to her. Especially the Black ones.
“Part of it, I think, it is representation,” Smith said. “I’d never seen another Black woman coaching, especially in baseball. So it just never crossed my mind that that might be an opportunity. It was always people in the front office so my initial goal was general manager.”
Perhaps one day, she’ll be the first one.
