San Francisco Giants' Alyssa Nakken becomes MLB's 1st female coach

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 21 January 2020

Alyssa Nakken is making history as the first woman to become a full-time coach in Major League Baseball.

Last week, it was announced that Nakken has been hired as an assistant under San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler. Not only will she coach, but Nakken will also "focus on fostering a clubhouse culture that promote high performance through, among other attributes, a deep sense of collaboration and team," Kapler said in a statement.

Nakken was a softball star at Sacramento State, playing first base. By the time she graduated in 2012, she was in the top 10 for most home runs and runs scored in team history. Nakken joined the Giants in 2014 as an intern in baseball operations, and worked her way up; recently, she spearheaded health and wellness initiatives and worked to promote diversity within the organization, ABC 10 reports.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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