The Arizona Diamondbacks organization has made a historic hire.
The Diamondbacks announced on Friday that Ronnie Gajownik has been hired as the manager of the Hillsboro Hops and in doing so, she’ll become the first woman to manage a minor league Class High-A team.
After serving as the video coordinator for the Hops in 2021, Gajownik will manage the ball club in 2023. Last season, she was the first-base coach for the Amarillo Sod Poodles — Arizona’s Double-A affiliate.
Gajownik had a chance to make her first public comments in an interview with Steve Gilbert of MLB.com.
“I know that if my dad took me out of school on a Wednesday and we went to a baseball game and I saw a female coach on the field, I know Thursday my life would have been changing in the trajectory of where I want it to go,” Gajownik said via Gilbert. “So the visibility aspect of it is huge, 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.”
Gajownik joins Rachel Balkovec as the only two women professional baseball managers. Last year, Balkovec became the first woman to manage a professional baseball team when she was hired by the Class-A Tampa Tarpons — a New York Yankees minor league affiliate.
“It was definitely beneficial, and I know that her and I are going to have a really good friendship,” Gajownik said of Balkovec. “I know that her and I can lean on one another, if needed.”
Gajownik won a gold medal with the United States in the 2015 Pan American Game and was also a two-year starter on the University of South Florida’s softball team.
