Abel: Malibu’s Justine Siegal steps up to the plate
From Judy Abel at the Malibu Times on February 1, 2017, with mention of SABR member Justine Siegal:
You may think a woman on a baseball card is a unicorn — a myth. But there is such a woman, and she’s Malibu resident Justine Siegal — the only female professional baseball coach. Siegal has broken so many barriers in what has been traditionally a men’s game, baseball, it’s hard to keep up with her. The 42-year-old trailblazer is preparing to go to Korea next month with Team Israel for the World Baseball Classic (WBC). She’ll be the only woman and first ever in uniform on the field and in the dugout.
Siegal works as a mental skills coach for Team Israel, which advanced to the WBC after qualifying in a championship game in Brooklyn last month. She’s the first woman to coach for a Major League Baseball organization. In 2009, she became the first woman to coach men’s professional baseball, working with an independent league. She was honored with her very own baseball card for the Brockton Rox in the Can-AM League. In 2011, she was the first woman to throw batting practice to Major League teams, six in all, including the Oakland As, the Tampa Bay Rays, St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros, the New York Mets and the Cleveland Indians. In 2015, she became the first woman to ever coach for a Major League team, working with the As in their instructional league. She owns so many “firsts,” she’s been featured on NBC Nightly News, among others shows — including a mention by David Letterman, who called her “pretty impressive.”
Read the full article here: http://www.malibutimes.com/malibu_life/article_240c5a08-e8dd-11e6-8689-2fa83bc1107a.html
Originally published: February 2, 2017. Last Updated: February 2, 2017.