From the time she was first introduced to baseball at age three or four by her mother, Bianca Smith has loved baseball. Though her mother passed away from cancer in 2013, Smith took her mom’s love of the game to another level when the Boston Red Sox made her the first Black woman to coach in professional baseball on Jan. 4, 2021.
She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in sociology in 2012 before earning both a master’s and law degree from Case Western Reserve University. She began working with the Spartans’ baseball team and served as the director of baseball operations. “I started coaching in 2015, but I didn’t accept that I wanted to pursue coaching full time until 2018. Despite my love of the game, it took me a while to admit that is how I wanted to spend my career,” she stated.
The Path to the Red Sox
Smith served as an operations intern with the Texas Rangers in 2017 and held an amateur administration internship with Major League Baseball in 2018. It was during her time with MLB that she began entertaining thoughts of becoming a full-time coach. That led to her becoming a volunteer assistant coach with the University of Dallas in the fall of that year.
She spent much of 2019 working with the Cincinnati Reds organization in baseball operations and as a youth roving instructor. Her next coaching experience was back in Division III with Carroll University in Wisconsin, where she was an assistant coach and hitting instructor.
“The most common thing I face is when people ask what I coach and I respond that I coach baseball, they often say, ‘Oh you mean softball?’ I find that hilarious because you would think that I know what sport I coach,” Smith quipped. “I usually just deadpan look at them with a confused face indicating I think they are asking a stupid question. They are usually surprised that I coach males.”
She stayed on with Carroll until March of 2021 when she officially began her minor league coaching position with the Red Sox.
The Red Sox
Smith had a wide range of coaching duties at the Red Sox Player Development Complex in Florida before being promoted to full-time for the 2022 season, which just became solidified when a more than three-month long MLB walkout ended on Thursday.
“I lucked out getting to work for the Red Sox because they have been a great organization all around. The other coaches have become family, to the point where I joke that they are the annoying older brothers I never wanted,” she joked. “The players have all been receptive to me and I’ve built some great relationships with them. The front office has been great making sure that I’ve settled in comfortably. We had a great season last year and I am looking forward to building off that.”
While she has specialized in hitting, outfield play, and strategy along with extensive use of analytics, she did learn one important lesson already this season: “When throwing BP (batting practice), stay present!” she acknowledged. She was struck by a batted ball and though she was fortunate to avoid a concussion and any head or vision issues, she did suffer a broken nose, requiring 11 stitches, and two black eyes.
Meet the Women Breaking Barriers Across MLB (mlb.com)
While women are gaining steam in professional baseball hires, including Rachel Balkovec becoming the first female manager in affiliated baseball when she was recently hired as the manager of the New York Yankees’ Low-A Tampa Tarpons, Smith longs for the day that hires like hers and Balkovec’s are commonplace.
“As a whole for women in baseball, I want it to no longer be news when we are hired for traditionally male-only positions,” remarked Smith, whose goal is to become a major league manager, hopefully for the Red Sox. “I want women to stop being questioned as to why we were hired.”
Official Boston Red Sox photos