The Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball (MLB) hired Ronnie Gajownik as their Single-A advanced team manager.
Diamondbacks farm director Josh Barfield explained what convinced the organization to promote her. "It was just her knowledge of the game. She had a playing background. And the way she's able to communicate, the hunger she possessed, the desire to learn and grow, it just all stood out."
Gajownik, 29, played softball at the University of South Florida. During her master's studies at Liberty University, Virginia, she started coaching softball.
In 2015 she helped the United States win a gold medal in women's baseball at the Pan American Games. In 2018 she started coaching softball full-time at the University of Massachusetts.
The Arizona Diamondbacks hired Gajownik for a player development role in early 2021, then promoted her to first base coach for the Single-A advanced Hillsboro Hops.
She is the second woman to earn a Minor League Baseball (MiLB) managing job after Rachel Balkovec, who became the skipper for the Tampa Tarpons, the Single-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. Gajownik became the first to reach the Single-A advanced level.
"The visibility aspect of it is huge," Gajownik commented for the MLB website. "Because, again, it's showing little girls and showing women that we're breaking the glass ceiling and we're leaving breadcrumbs for everybody behind us for us just to keep adding on to it to see how far we can go."
Gabriel Hernandez, Ty Wright and Ronald Ramirez will serve as Gajownik's coaches.
