Breaking The Glass Ceiling

The Miami Marlins did something no other team has done before: Hire a female general manager

By Michael Foulks, Sports O'Clock Writing Team Member

(photo credits: TMZ)

It is astonishing that a franchise that has been a front office disaster for the last decade and a half has come so far. It all changed when Derek Jeter and his team decided to buy the Miami Marlins back in 2017. They gutted the organization from top to bottom, and began to build a new team in their own vision.

Now, after an amazing performance on the field in 2020, where they went to the playoffs for the first time since 2003, they have made groundbreaking history. They hired the most qualified candidate for their general manager position, Kim Ng; she is the first woman to assume that role in a major North American sports team. Kim Ng is a lifelong baseball journey-woman; she started out as an intern for the Chicago White Sox all the way back in 1990. After graduating she became a full time worker for the Sox, and was soon Assistant Director of Baseball Operations. After the 1996 season, she left and took a job as an Assistant General Manager for the New York Yankees from 1998-2001. She helped Brian Cashman and the Yankees go to four straight World Series and win three straight from 1998-2000.

She should have been hired as a General Manager right after that stint; her resume at that point spoke for itself, but she went to Los Angeles to be the Assistant General Manager for the Dodgers from 2002-2011. After being interviewed and passed up multiple times by the Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Angels, and San Francisco Giants for vacant GM spots, she left the Dodgers in 2011. For the next nine years, she would be the Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations for Major League Baseball, reporting to former Yankees/Dodgers skipper Joe Torre.

Then, finally, after the 2020 season, the Miami Marlins gave her the opportunity she rightfully deserves. There is not one person around the league that has said anything bad about her, or that she couldn't do the job. She was the right choice, and the perfect person for the newly reborn team of the Miami Marlins. This franchise has turned around so much in the last 5 years, and their future with her at the helm could not be any brighter. The Mets and Braves should try to win a WS while they still have a chance; in a few years the Marlins will be running that division for the forseeable future.

(All photos are properly cited. No copyright infringement intended.)