» MARLINS HIRE FIRST FEMALE GM
MIAMI — She has spent three decades in Major League Baseball front offices and as one of the sport’s rising executives in baseball operations. She spent the past 15 of those years on the cusp of history only to be rejected time and time again.
Kim Ng’s time has finally come. On Friday, she broke one of MLB’s biggest glass ceilings.
The Miami Marlins hired Ng as the fifth general manager in the franchise’ 28-year history.
She is the highest-ranking woman in baseball operations among MLB’s 30 teams and the second person of Asian-American descent to run a baseball team, joining the San Francisco Giants’ president of baseball operations Farhad Zaidi with that distinction.
She is also believed to be the first woman hired to a general manager position by any professional men’s sports team in North America’s major leagues, although the Portland Mavericks, who were part of the Class A short-season Northwest League in the 1970s but did not have an MLB affiliation, hired Lanny Moss to be their general manager in 1974. That team dissolved in 1977.
Ng’s hire also comes a year after three female coaches — Alyssa Nakken with the Giants, Rachel Balkovec with the New York Yankees, Rachel Folden with the Chicago Cubs — were hired to join majorleague staffs.
“This challenge is one I don’t take lightly,” Ng, who turns 52 on Tuesday and will be formally introduced in a Zoom press conference on Monday, said in a Friday press release announcing her hire. “When I got into this business, it seemed unlikely a woman would lead a Major League team, but I am dogged in the pursuit of my goals. My goal is now to bring Championship baseball to Miami. I am both humbled and eager to continue building the winning culture our fans expect and deserve.”
She’s also the newest addition to a Marlins front office that values diversity. Three of the Marlins’ top four executive positions are held by a biracial man (CEO Derek Jeter) and two women (Ng as general manager and Caroline O’Connor as chief operating officer). Adam Jones, the Marlins’ chief revenue officer, is the fourth.
Ng (pronounced ANG) replaces Michael Hill, who had been with the Marlins organization since 2002 and was the franchise’s president of baseball operations since 2013. Hill, who is Black and Cuban, also previously served as general manager for six seasons.
“All of us at Major League Baseball are thrilled for Kim and the opportunity she has earned with the Marlins,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Kim’s appointment makes history in all of professional sports and sets a significant example for the millions of women and girls who love baseball and softball. The hard work, leadership and record of achievement throughout her long career in the National Pastime led to this outcome, and we wish Kim all the best as she begins her career with the Marlins.” ———
Her hire comes at the franchise’s latest critical juncture.
The Marlins are three years into their rebuild under the ownership group led by majority owner Bruce Sherman and CEO Derek Jeter. They are fresh off the team’s first playoff appearance since 2003 and first winning season since 2009. The team’s core — led by Sandy Alcantara, Brian Anderson, Miguel Rojas and Pablo Lopez — made significant strides during the shortened 2020 season. Seven of the club’s top-10 prospects, including the organization’s No. 1 overall prospect in starting pitcher Sixto Sanchez, made their debuts and played key roles as the season progressed.
“There was excitement for us to be one of the final four National League teams,” Jeter said in October, “and it was a great step for us as an organization to see some of the progress that we’ve made.”
In her role with the Marlins, Ng will oversee the Marlins’ baseball operations but work in unison with
Jeter, vice president of baseball operations and scouting Gary Denbo, assistant general managers Brian Chattin and Dan Greenlee, and the team’s scouting departments among others to make roster decisions.
“I like to get the opinions of the people that we put in place,” Jeter said in September. “I’ve always valued the opinions of the people that we brought in . ... Our group works collaboratively. And there’s a lot of conversations.”
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Ng, born in Indianapolis and raised in New York City as the first of five daughters to Jin Ng and Virginia Fong, has always gravitated toward sports. It started with tennis, which she played with her parents and sisters on weekends growing up in Queens. She idolized tennis stars Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova.
“Billie Jean for equality, and Martina for being true to yourself,” Ng said in 2015.
Baseball was there, too, watching games with her dad and living less than five miles from the Mets’ Shea Stadium.
One of the players she used to like watching? None other than current Marlins manager Don Mattingly, who was breaking into MLB as one of the league’s top first basemen with the Yankees in the 1980s when Ng was starting her softball career at Ridgewood High in New Jersey and then eventually at the University of Chicago. The two eventually overlapped during the end of Ng’s stint as vice president and assistant general manager with the Los Angeles Dodgers and will overlap again now with the Marlins.