Alyssa Nakken in 2007 as an All-Metro Softball selection from Woodland High School in Sacramento, Calif. (Renee T. Bonnafon/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Alyssa Nakken became the first female coach in MLB on Thursday when she was hired by the San Francisco Giants.
Alyssa Nakken and the San Francisco Giants have made history.
On Thursday, the Giants announced that Nakken and Mark Hallberg had been hired as assistants to new manager Gabe Kapler. Nakken, who played softball at Sacramento State, joined the organization in 2014 as an intern in baseball operations. She and Hallberg will be serving in a nontraditional role aiming to promote high performance and a close-knit team atmosphere.
Nakken will be the first woman coaching fulltime in the major leagues and will be one of only a few women coaching across baseball. In November, the New York Yankees hired Rachel Balkovec to serve as a minor league hitting coach and later that month, the Chicago Cubs hired Rachel Folden as the lead hitting lab tech for the team’s Arizona Rookie League team.
Nakken was a successful softball player at Sacramento State. She earned All-Conference honors three times playing first baseman from 2009 to 2012. She worked as the chief information officer for the University of San Francisco baseball team prior to joining the Giants and has a Master’s degree in Sports Management from the same school.
Nakken rounds out the staff of Kapler, who was hired in November to replace Bruce Bochy. Bochy had been the team’s manager for the last 13 years, bringing three World Series titles to San Francisco. Kapler joins the Giants after spending two years managing the Philadelphia Phillies. His overall managerial record is 161-163.