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Alyssa Nakken, the first woman to ever join a Major League Baseball coaching staff full-time and the first to coach on the field during a MLB game, has now become the first woman to interview for a MLB managerial job.
Nakken, 33, has been an assistant coach on the San Francisco Giants’ staff since January 2020.
On July 20, 2020, during the Giants’ game against the Oakland Athletics, she became the first woman to coach on the field in a MLB exhibition game, taking over at first base after Antoan Richardson was ejected from the game.
On April 12, 2022, Nakked became the first woman to coach on the field in a regular season MLB game when first base coach Richardson was again ejected from a game against the San Diego Padres.
Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic now reports that “Nakken was among the San Francisco Giants’ internal candidates to sit for a formal, first-round interview this past week.”
Alyssa Nakken, Giants bench coach Kai Correa and Giants third base coach Mark Hallberg are the three internal candidates on the team’s staff that are being considered as a replacement for Gabe Kapler, who was let go on Sept. 29.
Her focus the past four seasons with the Giants has been on baserunning, outfield instruction and in-game preparation, in particular as a dugout liaison to pinch hitters.
She graduated from California State University, Sacramento (AKA Sacramento State) with a degree in psychology after being a three-time all conference selection in softball. Nakken later would earn a master’s degree in sports management from the University of San Francisco.
Nakken began her career with the Giants as an intern in 2014. She then moved up to chief information officer before being named to the coaching staff full-time.
Other women to have broken down barriers in Major League Baseball include Rachel Balkovec, who has been the manager of the New York Yankees’ Low-A affiliate Tampa Tarpons for the last two seasons, Ronnie Gajownik – last year’s manager of the High-A Hillsboro Hops in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ organization, and Kim Ng, who became the first female general manager in major North American men’s professional sports when she was hired by the Miami Marlins in 2020.
This year, Ng also became the first female general manager in MLB history to lead a team to the playoffs. She, however, declined her mutual option to remain with Miami, even though the team exercised theirs, on Monday.