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The wife of a senior executive for the New York Yankees was found dead inside their New Jersey home on Saturday.
A source told The New York Post that Rachel Minaya – who is married to Omar Minaya, a senior advisor for baseball operations at the Yankees – had died at the age of 55.
Her husband, 65, was not home at the time of her death, the Post reported.
The details surrounding her death remain unclear but the source said that suicide has been ruled out as a cause of death.
The couple met at a hair salon in Manhattan in 1989 and became engaged within a year while on a trip to Italy.
They had two sons together, including Justin Minaya, a professional basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers.
Before joining the Yankees as a senior advisor, Omar, a native of Queens, worked for the New York Mets, spending some of those years as a general manager, a role he also carried out at the Montreal Expos.
Omar started his career working in the scouting department for the Texas Rangers between 1985 and 1997 before he moved to the Mets, where he worked on and off for over two decades.
Some of his most notable accomplishments include helping discover Sammy Sosa and Ivan Rodriguez while scouting for the Rangers, ESPN reported in 2023.
Upon joining the Yankees last year, he told Forbes: “For me, it’s a great start for the new year to be able to be with a team — a local team.
“As a kid that grew up in New York his whole life and grew up on the east side of New York City and Queens, to be able to have this opportunity to be here with part of a storied organization like the New York Yankees, for me and my family, it’s great. I’m looking forward to being part of the Yankee family.”
Rachel’s death comes just months after the Yankees executive team was struck by another tragedy earlier this year.
Cathy Tusiani – the wife of Yankees’ senior vice president of partnerships Michael J. Tusiani – was driving her 2021 Toyota northbound along Route 128 in Armonk, New York, in April when a tree toppled on her car during a storm and killed her, the North Castle Police Department said in a statement at the time.
The baseball team said in a statement that they shared the “pain and grief” with Tusiani, the couple’s two daughters Alexa and Julia and their entire family in the wake of the tragedy.
“Words cannot capture the devastating impact that is being felt within the Yankees family after the sudden and tragic loss of Cathy Tusiani,” the statement said.
The Independent has contacted the Yankees for further comment on Rachel Minaya’s death.
