How Erin Hartigan and Rachel Balkovec realized dreams with Bally Sports and NY Yankees
In an empty batting cage on a spring Friday night, the two high school juniors would occasionally take a break from hitting to talk about what they were doing, and specifically where they were going.
They saw their future lives not in an 8 x 10 frame, but rather that of a giant mural with large, colorful, bold strokes.
Eighteen years ago, Erin Hartigan and Rachel Balkovec were teenage girls attending the same high school in Omaha, Nebraska, and teammates on the same softball team.
One aspired to be a TV sportscaster.
The other wanted to coach.
“She didn’t come from money. She had nothing handed to her,” Hartigan said of Balkovec. “Even when she was in the eighth grade, she had this intensity. She was built differently.
“I knew then she was destined for big things. I don’t know if I anticipated her becoming the first female manager in baseball but I’d tell you today I am not surprised.”
Today, Hartigan is a studio anchor for Bally Sports Southwest. You are most likely familiar with her name and face from Big 12 sports on Fox Sports/Bally Sports coverage, Texas high school football, and her work with the Texas Rangers, New Orleans Pelicans and the Houston Texans.
Balkovec is the first female manager of an affiliated professional baseball team.
In the offseason, Balkovec was hired to manage the Tampa Tarpons, the Class A team of the New York Yankees.
She was scheduled to manage the Tarpons’ regular season opener on Friday, April 8. That historic moment has been delayed; on Tuesday, she was hit in the face by a batted ball and doctors have told her to wait five to seven days before she returns to work.
That Balkovec is the first female manager of a pro baseball team is surprising. The first anything is always a surprise.
That Hartigan and Balkovec did something grand with their lives is zero surprise to those who know them.
Both of Hartigan and Balkovec are products of coaches who gave a damn about their kids, and their behaviors.
“It was Keith Engelkamp, Larry King and Joe Negrete; those were our high school coaches and they were pivotal,” Hartigan said. “Once they knew we really wanted to do this, that we wanted to play softball, they worked with us all the time.
“We had learn how to control our passion and our work ethic, because we wanted it so badly. We had to learn to trust and slow down.”
And calm down.
As a player, Balkovec had a bit of a temper. She was known to throw a bat. Or a helmet. Maybe a glove.
One game she threw her helmet after an out at first base, which prompted her coach, Negrete, to stop the game.
Among other words Negrete used to admonish Balkovec was, “You don’t ever throw a helmet in my dugout ever again!”
To be sure the message was received, he took her out of the game.
After high school, both Hartigan and Balkovec were on their way. Balkovec was a catcher at Creighton and New Mexico, before she pursued coaching as a profession.
Hartigan graduated from West Texas A&M, and then started the low-paying, freelance way of moving up the so often brutally unkind sports TV ladder.
Balkovec earned multiple degrees from various schools, learned Spanish, and coached in the Netherlands and Australia but the ambition was to land a job coaching for a team in Major League Baseball.
When she applied for jobs, she shortened her name from “Rachel” to “Rae,” which opened opportunities. Rae would get a phone call whereas Rachel did not.
She was a strength and conditioning coach before she was named a minor league hitting coach by the Yankees.
When the Yankees named her the first female manager in affiliated pro baseball history back in January, it created the expected stir.
There are 36 people listed as a player or coach for the Tarpons; 35 are male. At least as of April 7, the Tarpons didn’t have a photo for her bio on their website.
When the eye heals, and the doctors allow, she will become the first woman to manage an affiliated MLB team in a regular season game.
Erin Hartigan can’t say she saw this coming, but she’s not surprised.
It’s Rachel Balkovec.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
