‘Since When Were Women Allowed’: Inside Their Push to Break Into Baseball

Katie Krall has a secret, she says. Something no one outside her family, no one in baseball and no one she has talked to in the whirlwind of the seven weeks knows. As a little girl, Krall could not make it through a baseball game. Three strikes would be thrown, and Krall would head out with the batter, too full of energy to make it past a few pitches at Wrigley Field.

Today, the 25-year-old is all about the sport she used to skip, and on Jan. 13, the Red Sox hired Krall as the development coach for their Double A team, the Portland Sea Dogs. Her hiring made history as the Red Sox became the first organization in affiliated baseball to have two women on their coaching staff: Krall and Bianca Smith, the first Black woman to land a coaching role in professional baseball when she was hired at the start of 2021.

Krall at her desk at the old MLB office at 245 Park Ave in Manhattan.

Courtesy of Katie Krall