MLB trailblazer Rachel Balkovec, the New York Yankees and Sydney Blue Sox hitting coach, opens up about early career setbacks
‘I’m really sorry, we’re not going to hire you and I want to be honest, it is because you’re a woman.’ These were the exact words said to Rachel Balkovec.
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‘I’m really sorry, we’re not going to hire you and I want to be honest, it is because you’re a woman.’
Those words from a man from a Major League Baseball organisation in 2013 were the motivation, more so validation, Rachel Balkovec needed.
The aspiring strength and conditioning coach, a star college softball athlete, with impeccable work history and credentials, was a “level nine naive” then, after having countless job applications completely ignored.
“I remember the moment, there’s certain moments in your life that you never forget,” Balkovec said.
“I was in a car with a friend, I took the call, and I got off the call and my friend was like ‘what happened?’
“I remember saying it as if it was so normal, ‘Oh yeah, I guess they’re not going to hire a woman’.
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“It’s crazy to think how much it’s changed, it was 2013, it wasn’t the ‘60s, and we still thought it was normal.
“I was so naive … had no idea it (being a woman) would even be a problem.”
After an internship at St Louis Cardinals and time abroad in baseball-mad Dominican Republic, Balkovec moved to Phoenix, Arizona to study and get in front of the 15 MLB clubs with spring training bases there.
She applied for 8-10 jobs in baseball but got doughnuts in return.
“Nothing,” Balkovec, who in time would go on to become the first woman hired by an MLB organisation to work full-time within strength and conditioning ranks, told the Blue Sox Banter podcast.
“Like crickets, barely anything, maybe one team said ‘thanks but no thanks’.”
Incredibly, a suggestion to change the name on her resume to “Rae” led to an avalanche of opportunities to interview for positions.
“I started to send it out to just about everyone and I got immediate responses,” Balkovec said.
“Even if they said ‘we don’t have anything open, we’ll be in touch’ they responded.
“I started getting email responses first, then I got a phone call … (the recruiter) was like ‘hey can I speak to Rae please?’
“I was like, ‘this is she’, it got real awkward real fast, he was shuffling papers and he was like ‘oh sorry, I was trying to make sure I had the right name’.”
Balkovec went back to using her actual name on her resume after the odd exchange but the setback fuelled her drive to land a dream job.
A breakthrough came in 2014 when the Cardinals, who Balkovec interned with previously, offered her the job of director of minor league strength and conditioning.
A decent promotion considering the then 26 year-old had a hard time landing unpaid internships.
“Ironically what that did for me, changing my name … was like ‘man, if they don’t want to hire me because I’m a woman’, even if it is longer (to get a job),” Balkovec said.
“I’d rather have somebody go ‘yeah, I don’t care’, I don’t want to convince someone.”
Balkovec would spend three years at the Cardinals, then two at Houston Astros, before a pivot towards skills coaching and a second historic-first, a job as hitting coach with the New York Yankees.
But Balkovec, who will spend the Australian summer mentoring Sydney Blue Sox sluggers, holds no grudges about the early-career snubs.
“I knew the people that were discriminating against me,” Balkovec told podcast host Glen Hawke.
“Now, I’m like ‘Oh hi, so nice to meet you in person’, remember me?’
“Even in the moment, but especially now looking back I don’t look at those people with malice, I’m not upset.
“It just was the time, the culture, even if they wanted to hire me, maybe they couldn’t because their administration didn’t want to.”
Balkovec has spent the past 11 days in hotel quarantine in Sydney.
Originally published as MLB trailblazer Rachel Balkovec, the New York Yankees and Sydney Blue Sox hitting coach, opens up about early career setbacks
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