London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Sep 22, 2025

A woman in charge, and it's about time

A woman in charge, and it's about time

On the day she officially became a trailblazer in Major League Baseball, Kim Ng remembered the little girl who played stickball on the streets of Queens.
At the time her gender wasn’t nearly as big of an issue as knowing the layout of the field.

``First base would be the red car on the right, second base was the manhole,’’ she said. ``Those were great memories.’’

The layout has changed some for Ng, who sat next to home plate Monday at Marlins Park for the virtual press conference that coronated her historic appointment as the new general manager of the Miami Marlins. Behind her was an immaculate field, with nary a red car or manhole in sight.

In front of her is a job that for way too many years has been off-limits to anyone but a man.

That it took so long for Ng to get a job running one of MLB’s 30 teams was, sadly enough, no surprise. Baseball evolves slowly, and the idea that a woman could actually be in charge of a team was inconceivable to past generations.

Maybe the best thing about Ng’s appointment by the Derek Jeter and the Marlins is that a lot of other girls like the one who played stickball in Queens can have their own dreams, too.

``Girls can see it,’’ Ng said. ``There’s an adage you can’t be it if you can’t see it. I guess I would suggest to them now, now you can see it.’’

Indeed, Ng had the rare ability to see what her future was - and believe there was a path to the top even when others saw it as impossible. She went from playing stickball in Queens to playing softball in college. A career in baseball beckoned, even if it was in the front office and not on the field.

The problem was, baseball wasn’t quite ready. It took three decades for Ng to reach the top, and the biggest reason behind that had nothing to do with her ability to do the job.

She was hired as an intern by the Chicago White Sox and worked her way up over the years. But even after stints with the Yankees and as an assistant general manager for the Dodgers, no team was willing to hand Ng the reins.

At least five times over the last 15 years she was interviewed for jobs running teams. Some, she thought, never had any intention of hiring her in the first place.

“After so many times you feel delated and feel like maybe it’s not going to happen,’’ she said. ``Even if it hadn’t happened, I was never going to see my career as a failure.”

Sitting on a stool next to home plate in Miami, Ng spent the better part of an hour Monday trying to explain what it all meant. She embraced the idea that this was bigger than her getting the Marlins job, while celebrating at the same time her lifetime dream being realized a day before her 52nd birthday.

She’s got a lot of work ahead of her, even though the Marlins qualified for this year’s expanded playoffs for the first time since 2003. Ng will be expected to deliver a winner in Miami, a task made difficult by the fact the Marlins are perennially among the lowest spenders in baseball.

But this is a woman who was unafraid to give her opinion even as an intern with the White Sox. This is a woman who went up against super agent Scott Boras before she turned 30, winning an arbitration case she presented against pitcher Alex Fernandez.

This is a woman who knows baseball - and knows how to get things done.

``I was never hired to just nod my head,’’ she said. ``My biggest advice is voice your opinion.’’

The opinion among most in baseball is that the Marlins have a winner in Ng. Judging from the ease with which she handled her opening press conference they also have someone willing to be the face of the franchise should Jeter want to stay in the background.

Eventually she will be judged on how many games the Marlins win and whether they can make the playoffs on a regular basis. That’s something that comes with the territory of anyone who holds the title of general manager, a job that doesn’t come with a large amount of job security.

Ng is OK with that, just like she’s OK with being the role model for those coming after her. She embraces the role of pioneer and is unafraid of the challenges ahead.

Just the kind of general manager the Marlins need. Exactly the kind of role model girls everywhere deserve.

``Anything is possible, that’s my message to your little girl,’’ she said when asked yet again what she would say about her appointment to young girls. ``Just work your butt off and keep your nose to the grindstone.''
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
Explosive Email Shows Sarah Ferguson Begged Forgiveness from Jeffrey Epstein After Taking His Money
Corrupt UK Politician Ed Davey Demands Elon Musk’s Arrest for Supporting Democracy
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Alibaba Debuts Open-Source Deep Research Agent with Benchmarks Rivaling OpenAI
Marcos Faces Legacy-Defining Crisis as Flood Projects Scandal Sparks Massive Tide of Protests
China’s Micro-Drama Boom Turns Stalled Real Estate Projects into Lavish Film Sets
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
'Company Got 5,189 H-1B Visas, Then Laid Off 16,000 Americans': US Defends New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Golf legend tells Omar she should be 'sent back to Somalia' after her Kirk comments
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
×