#BlackExcellence ! Boston Red Sox has announced former Carroll University assistant coach Bianca Smith as a Minor League coach. The 29 year who will primarily work with position players makes history as the first Black woman coach in professional baseball history.
Before becoming a hitting coordinator at Carroll University. she worked at Case Western University as director of baseball operations between 2013 and 2017 and as an assistant coach at the University of Dallas in 2018, The Seattle Medium reported.
MLB.com Smith will start at the Red Sox player development facility in Fort Myers, Fla.
The opportunity is amazing,” Smith said on Monday in an interview on MLB Network’s Hot Stove, MLB.com “I’m still wrapping my head around it. I probably won’t really have it sink in until I’m actually there.
“I think it’s a great opportunity also to kind of inspire other women who are interested in this game. This is not really something I thought about it 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.”
“As the hitting coordinator, I run all of our technology side for hitting at Carroll,” Smith told Hot Stove. “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.”
Smith graduated from Dartmouth, where she played softball.
“She was a great candidate coming in,” said Red Sox vice president of player development Ben Crockett, who helped spearhead the hire. “She’s had some really interesting experiences and has been passionate about growing her skill set and development herself.”
