On Monday, the Boston Red Sox hired Bianca Smith to be a minor league coach. Smith becomes the first black woman to coach in professional baseball. She will be coaching position players at the Red Sox player developmental facility in Fort Myers, Florida.
“The opportunity is amazing,” Smith said Monday during an interview with MLB Network. “I’m still wrapping my head around it. I probably won’t really have it sink in until I’m actually there.”
Bianca Smith Background
Smith has been the assistant coach and hitting coordinator at Carroll University in Wisconsin since 2018. Before her time at Carrol University, Smith was director of baseball operations at Case Western Reserve University from 2013 to 2017. She also was an assistant coach at the University of Dallas in 2018. Smith also spent time with the Texas Rangers and Cincinnati Reds in their internship programs.
“I think it’s a great opportunity also to kind of inspire other women who are interested in this game,” Smith told MLB Network. “This is not really something I thought about when I was younger. I kind of fell into it being an athlete. So I’m excited to get that chance to show what I can do.”
The 29-year-old played softball at Dartmouth College, and she graduated in 2012. Smith really looks forward to learning the different metrics of baseball.
“As the hitting coordinator, I run all of our technology side for hitting at Carroll,” said Smith. “The number of different resources that the Red Sox have as far as tech goes, I’m really excited to get my hands on that and learning the different metrics and being able to dive deeper into what I currently have is pretty exciting.”
This is an excellent opportunity for Smith; she has a good baseball background and will do an excellent job for the Red Soz; hopefully, she knocks it out the park and can make her way to coach in the Majors.
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