A Crack in the Glass, Perhaps

 Earlier this week The As hired Justine Siegal to coach its team in the Arizona Instructional League.  The two-week gig makes Siegal, who pitched BP to six teams during spring training in 2011, the first woman coach hired by MLB.  She has already coached in independent baseball and on the college level.  Basically, Siegal will work with infielders, throw more BP and hit fungos (truly, a lost art).

If Siegal were a man, would I hire her as a coach?  That’s a tough call for me.  I think players relate better to coaches who have a track record; think Bill Robinson (hitting) or Johnny Sain (pitching).  But this is not to deny the success of someone like Walt Hriniak or Mike Maddux. 

Talent evaluation, on the other hand, is not a function of playing but watching.  Siegal has attended scouting school with the Major League Scouting Bureau, so I’d have no problem hiring her to hunt for talent.  Further, managing is not coaching.  A manager handles personalities and strategy.  Siegal has a Ph.D. in sport and exercise psychology, so she could be the next Earl Weaver or Walter Alston, only one of whom made it to the major leagues (Alston, with 1 at-bat in 1936).  Two minor leaguers who went on to win five World Series between them.  Siegal could do that.  And given all the general managers out there who never played, I’d be willing to give her a crack at that job, too.

Siegal is the founder of Baseball for All, an organization dedicated to increasing opportunities in baseball for girls and women.  I like what she says on the group’s website: “If you tell a girl she can’t play baseball, what else will she think she can’t do?”  Clare couldn’t have put it better herself.