Over the weekend there was not just one female hired as an on-field coach for a MLB team but there was two. The New York Yankees hired Rachel Balkovec as a minor league hitting coach and the Chicago Cubs hired Rachel Folden to lead hitting labs for their minor league team. This announcement is a step in the right direction for females and their role in the sports world. Folden and Balkovec got hired by teams in one of the most popular men’s sports in existence. There haven’t been many females hired as coaches in the big leagues. Why? Well it’s pretty simple. It’s because they are females and people assume they don’t have the knowledge to coach men. This assumption is just a stereotype, not a fact. If we put our heart and minds into something, we can do anything and so I think females should have been hired a long long time ago. I know I should be happy about females getting on-field jobs for professional baseball teams but as a female I’m going to be picky. Both of these women could have and should have been hired as hitting coaches for the major league team of these organizations and not the minor league team. It’s setting a standard that we are only capable of coaching men at a less competitive level that no one really pays attention to. I have to applaud the Yankees and Cubs for trying to help females end the discrimination but Major league teams can do more.
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