 Well, greetings from Cooperstown, New York, side of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. We're very glad that you could join us for this special program that not only we here at the Hall of Fame are involved with, but also the National Archives in Washington, D.C. My name is Bruce Marcus, and I work in the Hall of Fame's Education Department. And our special guest coming up in just a couple of moments is Kim Ang, the General Manager of the Miami Marlins. We have lots of questions and topics to get to. And if you have questions for Kim, you can put them in the chat box or the chat room. We'll get to those a bit later on. Before we speak directly to Kim though, we do wanna give you a short presentation about our exhibit here at the Baseball Hall of Fame. It is Diamond Dreams Women in Baseball. This exhibit first opened up way back in 1988 and it was very modest back then. It really consisted of a single glass case, but it has now grown to include an entire corner of the second floor of the museum. There are several cases and several kind of rooms partitioned off from each other. It's a very popular exhibit. It's always crowded during the summer months. It traces women's roles in the game from the 19th century ball clubs to their present day involvement. Not only does it look at women pioneers on the field, but also in baseballs front offices and in broadcast booths as well. Here are some other photos from that exhibit. The one on the left, I think is particularly interesting, that exhibit case showcasing the skirted uniforms used by some of the players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League which existed from 1943 to 1954. Also you can see several gloves, mitts, caps and banners as well. And then on the right side of your screen, a more recent women's baseball history, part of our collection is the WCBS microphone used by Susan Waldman, longtime broadcaster for the Yankees on the radio side of things. When you look at the history of women in baseball, a really good starting point is this team, Vastar College, the Resolutes as they were called. They were the first organized women's team. They existed from 1866 to 1878. They were a successful team. After their team started, other colleges also started women's varsity teams. Sadly though, the Vastar team came to really a rather quick end. It was only 12 years after they started and it was due to complaints from the parents, the parents were concerned about their daughter's safety and welfare. They simply felt baseball was too dangerous for their daughters. So against the wishes of the players themselves and because of those parent complaints, the Vastar College team was shut down. But women's baseball would continue in many other ways. And certainly one of those ways is through the history of significant executives. We talk about F.A. Manley. In the 1930s, she became the owner of the Newark Eagles. She established a reputation as one of the best owners in the league, a champion for player rights and a promoter of civil rights as well. She once organized a boycott of department stores in Harlem that had refused to hire black clerks. And that boycott, it worked, it put pressure on the stores and it led those department stores to change their hiring practices. 2006, F.A. Manley earned election of the Hall of Fame first woman enshrined here in Cooperstown. And then other important female owner shown here, Joan Payson, the first principal owner in the history of the New York Mets. Under her leadership, the Mets won their first world championship in 1969. She was absolutely beloved by the players, the front office and also the New York media. And then we bring up to the modern day. We have Janet Marie Smith, the one-time guest on this program. She's the architect who came up with the design for Camden Yards and Baltimore. She has overseen significant renovations at Fenway Park and now works in the front office for the LA Dodgers. And then of course we have today's guest, Kim Ang, the first woman to become a general manager in the major leagues. Really the first woman to become a GM in any of the major men's sports in North America. And Kim is prominently featured in our Diamond Dreams exhibit. You can see the panel here that has the photo of Kim at the ballpark and a short biography as well. And that does bring us to our guest today, the special edition of Virtual Voices of the Game, Kim Ang, the general manager of the Miami Marlins. Kim has been in baseball for more than 30 years, once intern for the Chicago White Sox at the start of her career, later working for the Yankees, the Dodgers Major League Baseball and now running the baseball show for the Marlins. Kim, we welcome you to this program sponsored by the Hall of Fame and the National Archives. A real pleasure to have a chance to talk to you. Thanks for being with us. Hi, Bruce. So happy to be here. Thank you so much for the invite. Well, we wanna begin with your younger days, some photos I'm sure that you're familiar with. You were a softball player back in the day as seen in these images. These are only still shots, but it looks like you have a pretty good level swing there. What do you remember about the days on the sandlot playing softball? Well, gosh, there were, there's so many memories to be had. That's probably the cleanest you'll ever see me in those pictures. You know, I think I was the typical, you know, smaller, spunky player. Always had to have very good mechanics because of my size, but definitely always putting 110% effort out there, which is probably how you would describe my career as well. Never the biggest or the loudest in the room, but definitely always there before and after putting forth good effort and making the most of my ability. Did you have a primary position you played in softball or did you move all around? You know, I was an infielder, so wherever I was needed, I preferred third base, the hot corner. You know, I felt like my reflexes, my reaction time was pretty good and I had a pretty good arm. So that was definitely my favorite. Got put at shortstop when we needed to have somebody like me there, but third base was definitely my favorite. You know, we hear so many stories from girls and young women playing softball and baseball, let's say in the last 20 to 30 years. And you hear a lot of stories from girls who feel like they've been sort of funneled towards softball. Maybe they wanted to play baseball, but were perhaps not encouraged to do so. Maybe there was not a team in that area. Was that your experience? You know, I can't even say that I really played baseball you know, in a league. So I mean, this was also a long time ago. And where I lived, we didn't have too many leagues at that time. So when I did, you know, I moved to Long Island and there were leagues available, you know, and I did take a liking to softball. But I can't say that there was this natural funneling, but what I will say is that for a lot of the young women that I've talked to, a lot of girls that I've talked to, there is that natural funneling to softball. Some of them are fine with it. And I will say there's definitely a loud subset of girls that are pretty annoyed that that's the case because they love the game of baseball. Certainly you were a fan of baseball from a young age. Tell us about your favorite player growing up. Oh gosh, I, you know, my dad was a big sports fan. We grew up in New York. I was a child, I was a product of the 70s. And so, of course, the team at the time in New York was the Yankees, and my favorite player was Thurman Munson because he was always the dirtiest one on the field. He was the one leading the charge. He was a tremendous hitter and he came through in the clutch. So always, always a big, I was always a big fan of him. You know, one of the things that's amazing, I've talked to some pitchers who played with Munson and they all just rave about how he handled them, how he handled pitchers. They, he just instilled a certain level of confidence. He was, you know, a very serious guy, very gruff with the media, but also very confident and really had an intelligence for the game. I'm a little bit older than you. And Munson, along with Bobby Mercer, was one of my two favorite players on the Yankees growing up. Did you know a lot about Munson or were you just a little bit too young to really fully appreciate him? No, I think while fully appreciate him, I'm not sure I could do that. I was young at the time, but I knew a fair amount about him. I mean, I can tell you where I was when, you know, I found out about his death, his tragic death, you know, knew all his statistics, you know, could emulate his batting stance. So all of those types of things. It was pretty interesting for me, you know, years after then going to work for the Yankees and hearing the stories about Thurman from, you know, from Mr. Steinbrenner, from other, you know, former players who were teammates of his during that time. So, you know, definitely a legend in my mind as a kid and, you know, in talking to others that knew him, the legend only grew in my mind. Kim, I imagine that meant a lot to you to see his locker at Yankee Stadium, which still preserved all these years later. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think that that's just a testament to him and, you know, exactly what we've been talking about, you know, from his performance on the field to the character to the way that he led, you know, and, you know, he was, from what I understand was not a guy of a lot of words. And I think that's even more of a testament to him that they, you know, had this locker, have had it for decades now and to what, you know, to what he represented, you know, in being the captain. And it was only until, again, decades later until they named somebody in addition to him as the captain. But, you know, you know, I describe him, you know, I talk about him as a dirtbag. And that is said with a lot of fondness, you know, that described how he played and his character and was always willing to get dirty to help the team win. You know, when you think of baseball, and I grew up as a diehard fan, my father loved the game and passed that love along to me. And I primarily followed the major leagues and the minor leagues. I have to be honest though, I didn't know about the All-American Girls League from the 40s and 50s until Roy Firestone started talking about it on his sports look show on ESPN. He had Casey Kendall on the program and Casey's mother played in the All-American League. And this was probably late 80s when I first became aware of the All-American League. How about for you? When did you first start to hear those stories? Cause they were not very well known for a long time. They were not well known. And I didn't realize that about Casey Kendall's mother. So that's pretty cool. Really the first time I had heard about it was when the movie came out. And that was definitely eye-opening to me. I can tell you that my sister and a friend of mine that I played collegiate softball with, they played in a baseball league after college. So I knew about leagues that existed but had no idea until the movie came out about the league from yesteryear. Very interesting that when you were in college, you decided to write your thesis on title nine last year, the 50th anniversary of that groundbreaking legislation. Two part question. Why did you pick that topic to write your thesis on? And two, was it a difficult topic to research at the time? So this was say very late 80s that I wrote my thesis. My thesis, I happened upon the subject of title nine. So there were a couple of things going on. Number one had to write this senior paper. And my thought was, okay, if I'm going to spend all of this time writing a 30 plus page paper, I want it to be about something that I thought was engaging or fun or something that I was passionate about. And I fell on the topic of title nine, which I knew nothing about at the time really. So the more I read about it, the more intrigued I was, the more I realized how fortunate I was and was a product and maybe not a direct product, but still close enough to that group that faced a lot of hardship in terms of trying to get equality and fight for equality. And so those things were definitely of interest to me, really intriguing, things that I had encountered in my life, but I hadn't really put it all together yet in terms of how I felt about it slash how meaningful it was in my life. So the more I started to read about title nine, the more I thought, okay, this is my topic and somehow I'm gonna write my paper about this law. It was not difficult to research. There was plenty of material on it at that time, even though by a lot of standards, it wasn't a very old law at the time. It was probably 15 to 20 years old. I think it had been interpreted in a lot of different ways. I think people were still, and then probably still to this day are still trying to figure out ways to comply with the law. But there was quite a lot written about it. So I had no scarcity of material to read. The interesting thing for me as well was that University of Chicago, which is where I went to college, had a fairly rich history in terms of women's sports and athletics. At the time I was in college, we had a female athletic director, which was really rare at the time. And so that was great for me. For my thesis, I was able to interview her and she sent me in all different types of directions to go get information and perspective. University of Chicago, also, I believe this is right, but they had the first televised women's basketball game, nationally televised women's basketball game. So that was kind of cool. So there were all these little touch points for me that were very close to home, but I had an absolute blast writing that paper, as much as you could have a blast writing a college paper. You still have the paper? I do, I do. It's in a box somewhere, but I still have it. Yeah. Have you thought about donating it to a museum perhaps? I'd have to go back and read it and really make sure I think the conclusions are in line. I'm sure my perspective has changed a little bit since then, but it was interesting to work through because Title IX was a pretty hot topic at the time, just because there were so many schools trying to figure out how to implement. But I'm sure with 30 years now down the road, I'm sure my perspective has changed a bit. But I would consider it. Yeah, we're all probably better writers now. At least we hope we're better writers now than we were in those college years. I've looked back at some of my college term papers. It's a bit frightening. I'm sure mine would be frightening as well. Curious to see it though. Let's talk about your professional career, which I guess in many ways started in 1990. You become an intern with the Chicago White Sox and eventually become an employee. But I'm curious, as an intern with the White Sox, what was your job? What did you do? Well, it was a fun time. As an intern, you basically put on the hat where you have to be willing to do anything. And I will say that the White Sox had a great program and no task was too small. And as well, they put me on some projects that you really couldn't believe you were working on as an intern. So a lot of that varied from anything from inputting expense reports, inputting scouting reports to working on arbitration cases. So I was actually in an arbitration room as an intern in February of 1991. And that in and of itself was a ridiculously cool experience for me to think that at 22 years old, I was sitting there in a room that hundreds of thousands of dollars were being decided upon and know that I had a hand in helping with a lot of that research. So I had a lot of different responsibilities culminating probably in that one experience in the arbitration room. Wow. Now with the player, I'm not asking you to name the player, but would the player have been in the room or just the player's agent with you and the others from the organization? No, both. So the player, his agent, members of the players union, I'm sorry, I should take that back, representatives of the players union were in the room. So it was a pretty heavy duty stuff for 22 year old. In general, they can be somewhat confrontational, especially back in that time. Was this the case in this arbitration case that you were a part of? So it wasn't confrontational, but I do think, look, I think it's a really difficult arena where as a player you're having to listen to what the weaknesses of your game are and why so many other players are better than you are and where you slot into the salary structure and items that you've probably never even thought of. The club is bringing up and now after the hearing, they patch you on the back and they say, okay, go play your hardest. It's definitely a difficult dynamic. I will say, if any of us had to experience that in our jobs, I'm not sure we'd be showing up to work the next day. Yeah, that's a good point. Who did you report to as a White Sox intern? I reported to two gentlemen, and I could say three, Jeff Cheney, who was our director of baseball ops, Dan Evans, who was our assistant GM at the time, and Jack Gould, who was one of our minority owners. Actually, I think I followed Dan Evans on Twitter. He's, I know, still rather active as a kind of a historian and follower of the game. The general manager was at Ron Shuler at the time. It was Ron Shuler. Yeah, did you have much contact with him? I did, I did. He was great. He would, he invited everybody in the baseball ops department to his suite each night and we watched the game with him. So, great learning experience for me. Really great baseball guy. You eventually move on to the New York Yankees. You worked there from 1998 to 2001. Inevitably have to ask you, tell us about that first time that you met the boss, George Steinbren. What do you remember of that? You know, he is a pretty intimidating figure. Not necessarily in stature, but I think in his ability to, let's say, command the room. And so, I met him right before a meeting that we had at the end of spring training, you know, larger than life type of personality. Let everybody know who was the lead dog. And, you know, everything you hear about him, for me, you know, came through in his persona that day. You know, he's, he definitely lets you know he's in the room. He asks, he asked a lot of questions. And, you know, he gave people a lot of guff when, I wouldn't say when they deserved it, but when he felt it was necessary. Yeah. Now, you were the assistant general manager. So you reported to Brian Cashman. So obviously you had a lot of input on various player personnel decisions. What was it like being in that job, working in that organization at a time when the franchise was just remarkably successful was right in the middle of a dynasty? Right. You know, look, I think they, you know, at the time that I was there, so my first year was 1998, I'm not sure we quite knew that we were in the, you know, in the middle of a dynasty, but I can tell you that everyone had a really special feeling about that particular club, 1998. It was a club that I call the sum of the parts where not one player hit 30 home runs, but we scored over 900 runs, which is just absurd. You know, and you talk about, you know, these days we talk about plate discipline and strike zone recognition and grinding at bats and these guys, all of them from top to bottom were absolute exemplary in those items. So for me, it was just an amazing experience, you know, to see many superstars on one club, but still have this incredible attitude and feeling of team. And every night was a different hero. You know, every night, you know, somebody different was scoring the winning run and they all, you know, it was just this incredible collection of selfless players. And for me, it was really one of those amazing times in my career where you get to see like, this is the way it should be. So, you know, did it set an unrealistic expectation? I don't think so because I think, you know, for me even being so, you know, fairly young in my career knew that it was just really special and you just don't get to see this very often. But it did, you know, in my mind really create the benchmark of this is what it's supposed to look like, you know, in its purest, you know, my most idealic form, this is what it should look like. You know, you think about it, three consecutive world championships, really hard to do now, but still extremely hard to do back then. It hadn't been done since the A's of 72, 73 and 74. I don't wanna say that you necessarily get spoiled by that, but do you have to guard against the false impression that it's easy to win in baseball? Cause we know it's not. No, even when we were going through it, we knew it wasn't easy because I can tell you, so in 98 we had that magical year, you know, where we won 114 regular season games, but the next year we absolutely struggled in September and we kind of backed off, we backed into the playoffs. And so even then, again, you know, when we were going through it, we knew it wasn't easy. You know, and even the next year, you know, 2000 when we played the Mets in the Subway series, I mean, that was a tough one, you know, every game was, you know, really tight and, you know, it could have gone anyway. So, you know, at least for me and I think for anybody else you talk to on that team or in the front office at that time, I think we all appreciated just how hard it was. And the amazing thing is, you know, I always think back to that time and how I felt. And when we actually won, it's hard to say you were ecstatic. It was more just relieved, you know, because you knew that the expectations were high, you know, we had done it the year before and that, you know, everybody, you know, was looking to you to do it again, but because it is so hard, it wasn't really about, it wasn't really about the joy, it was more about the relief. It's hard as that is to admit, but true. Here we have Joe Torrey, he was the Yankees manager during that incredible run. You obviously worked with him there later in the MLB front office when you became the senior vice president for baseball operations. You reported to Joe Torrey. Joe's one of my favorites. We've interviewed him two or three times here on our virtual programs. One of the real good guys in baseball. And I know that you two have been very close over the years. Very close. You know, we worked together at three different places. You know, as you mentioned, Yankees Dodgers Major League Baseball. You know, Joe is one of my all-time favorite people, not just in the business, but period. To me, Joe, you know, Joe just has this incredible way of simplifying fairly complex issues. And I think the reason he's able to do that is because he's such a soulful guy. And I think he's a very empathetic guy and really has a great understanding of people, what motivates them, what makes them tick, and can always put himself in their shoes. And so I think that, you know, all of those things make him a great human being and somebody that I go to for advice quite a bit. One of the things that amazed me, and there were a lot of things that he did remarkably well in New York and really put together that Hall of Fame resume, but he always remained so calm and so reasoned. There may have been one or two times where he got a little bit angry with the media in New York, and we know the New York media can be tough. I mean, I think they're fair, but they can be tough. And yet he kept himself composed during that long tenure in New York and rarely, at least outwardly, seemed to get upset. It's just incredible that he was able to do that. If he were here right now, he might tell you that came with age. Yeah. I'm laughing because I saw a clip of him when he was managing, and he had a few choice words for an umpire one day. No, but I think, you know, I think that's right. I think, you know, Joe is an incredibly calm figure. I think he was the absolute right guy for those Yankee teams at that time. Perfect guy for the New York media. I think it helped that he actually worked in the media prior to that and sort of understood what needed to be fed and understood that the reporters had a job to do. And gave them nuggets when he could. And, you know, again, you know, putting himself in their shoes and knowing what they had that they had a job to do and what they needed to accomplish. So I think that's always been, you know, his forte. You know, he's just, before I actually worked for Joe, yeah, I would consider, you know, the Yankees and the Dodgers working with Joe, but before I actually worked for Joe, yeah, you'd always heard about what a great players manager he was. And I think some of it had to do with that calmness, you know, that you referenced. But until I actually worked for him, I had never really understood exactly what that meant. Yeah. But when, you know, when I worked for him at Major League Baseball, it was, you know, an incredible, you know, incredible resource, incredible sounding board, and yeah, never panicked in any type of situation. So, you know, my husband and I would always laugh, watching him during games. I mean, the most tense of, you know, World Series games, and he's just sitting on the bench, you know, with the lowest of heart rates, I'm sure. Yeah. In many ways, the opposite of Billy Martin who showed every emotion possible, but a little different with Joe Torrey. Our guest is Kim Heng, the general manager of the Miami Marlins, has been in that position since 2020. And Kim, let's talk about the day that you got the news. You were hired by Derek Jeter. Tell us what reaction you came up with when you heard this news that you had been named GM of the Marlins. So first of all, you know, I think, you know, you know, that was an incredible day. Obviously, you know, before I had that conversation with Derek over Zoom, you know, had basically told myself I was going to just put it out, pull it all out on the table. This is my last-stitch effort, you know, probably was going to be our last conversation before he made up his mind. And, you know, just decided I had to, I had to do that in order to try and get this job. So I start down this road, you know, start giving him my pitch. And he, you know, we get about five, six minutes in and he's like, whoa, he said, I just want to know if you want to be my general manager. And of course I laughed a bit. And then, you know, and then I realized sort of the point I was at and where, you know, where my journey had now taken me. And I think, you know, had chased it for so long that I couldn't believe that it had finally, you know, we had finally gotten there. And I think, you know, similar to how I was describing, you know, the World Series and getting there as a Yankee in 98, it really had the same feeling, which was relief. Just that, you know, all this hard work had not necessarily gone for naught. Not that it would have anyway, but, you know, but that, you know, you put all this hard work in and you have these aspirations and they were finally realized. So pretty emotional, you know, open to my husband happened to be listening outside my door at the time, open the door and, you know, looked at him and, you know, he knew everything I had been through. So pretty special day, you know, that was again, just everything coming to a head. And, you know, we spoke of Joe. Joe was the first person that I called, had decided I wanted to tell my mom and my four sisters in person. So they were not the first people that I called but, you know, Joe was there and Joe was a part of it. And, you know, it was a great day. You know, it's easy to forget that this was in the midst still of the pandemic. This was 2020. You mentioned that you had to do the job interview via Zoom. I think probably all of us would rather do something like that in person. So that was not easy, was it? No, no, none of it was easy, even, but I will say even the interviews in person were not easy. I had a few of those. No, it wasn't easy, you know, but the good thing was, and I had familiarity with Derek. You know, we knew each other from Yankee's days. And so that was, you know, it was incredible, you know, those conversations were incredible. You know, in that, you know, there was a familiarity and, you know, he was the same guy that I knew 20 years earlier. So that was really reassuring. What is this job like day to day? I mean, I hear stories about 100-hour, 120-hour work weeks, hardly an opportunity, it seems, to rest. Is it as hectic as we are led to believe now? I would say it is, you know, and I guess I would say this too. Maybe the 100 hours isn't necessarily just sitting at your desk you know, staring at your computer, but it's probably 85 to 90 hours of that slash watching games. And then the rest of it is basically agonizing over what you should be doing. Or what you are currently not doing and how you should be helping your club, not, you know, not sleeping, staring at the ceiling fan. And that was a reference for Josh Rowlett right there. But it, you know, it's, listen, it's an all consuming job. You know, I marvel at the guys who do the job with, you know, small kids because, you know, not only is this job not an easy task, but to do that, you know, to do it with, you know, a family that deserves your time, needs your time as well is really, really hard. You know, but they are, these are all consuming jobs. And I mean, I think, you know, for the 30 of us that have these jobs, I think we feel a responsibility, you know, to the people that rely on us, you know, to our staffs, to the players and our organizations, you know, to do everything that we can to make us better day in and day out. So, you know, and plus, you know, I think with, I think with social media these days, I mean, that's, you know, that's also a mechanism we didn't have, you know, 15 years ago where there's always something, you know, there's always something you can learn or something to lament, you know. And so I try my best not to get on social too much, but I'm sure there's always information that we can pick up. Kim, do you typically travel with the team on road trips? I wouldn't say typically, but I would say majority of the time, you know, it also depends on, you know, so my first year I traveled quite a bit. It was probably about 75% of the time with the club. My second year is probably 50%. This year it might go back up to 75% because we have new staff members and I want to get to know them. You don't have them get to know me, but it is quite a bit of travel. What about during the winter, the alleged off season? Is it really an off season or are you putting in close to as many hours as you would during the spring and summer? You know, this is, yeah, you're absolutely putting in as much time as you do during, you know, the seasons when baseball is actually being played I can tell you this off season in particular was, it looks like we're not doing anything, because we're not necessarily, you don't necessarily see signings, you don't necessarily see trades right away. For the first two months, three months of this off season, it didn't look like we were doing anything, but that's when, you know, that's when you're laying all of the groundwork for, you know, your potential moves and you're, you know, it's, you know, you're talking to dozens and dozens of agents, you're talking to all 29 clubs multiple times, you know, and I say dozens and I'm talking, you know, I guess I mean, each one of us, you know, that's me and each one of my staff members were each talking to dozens and dozens. So, you know, between the, you know, five of us say, you know, we've just covered so much ground, you know, and for us in particular this off season, we didn't see very much action in terms of, you know, anything coming to fruition early, but in January, just, you know, all the dominoes fell probably within a, you know, three to four week period. And it seemed like, you know, we were in the, you know, we were breaking some kind of news, you know, at least once a week, maybe every five days or so, five or six days, you know, between free agent signings, between, you know, we traded for Louisa Rise, you know, the American League hitting champ this past year, you know, and then, you know, we got into spring training, but to answer your question, no, the off season, it should be re-termed, should be given another name because there's nothing off about it. The perception of some fans, and I would put myself in this category, is that this could be a very glamorous job. Is it glamorous though? You know, it can be very glamorous. You know, I will say that, you know, to the outsiders, to the outsider, it looks very glamorous, you know, to a lot of my family members, it looks very glamorous. I will say that I just had some of my family stay with me for the last three or four days here in spring training, and they saw a plethora of different issues that I've had to deal with over the last three or four days that they would have had no idea of me having to deal with, you know, and it's, you know, everyone thinks it's about trades and free agent signings and, you know, those types of things, those are the things that you read about from the outside, but on the inside, they saw me deal with issues on WBC and when our pictures were going, and you know, all the things that led up to us, you know, setting a plan for them, and, you know, some other instance, some other examples of things I can't really get into on this call, you know, but things where you're really rolling up your sleeves and having to deal with a lot of nitty gritty, you know, personnel issues, et cetera, and, you know, they had never really seen that. You never really experienced that. I could tell you that my husband and I drove up to New York for the holidays and he got the first day we were on the road, he got to see me try to complete a deal from the time we got in the car, I heard him tell the story to some others and he said, at 1300 miles we drove, she was on the phone for a thousand and he said, she didn't even land the free agent she was trying to get. So he saw a deal, you know, I don't want to say from start to finish, but he really saw me trying to close the deal and it took all day long and all day of being on the phone in the car, he didn't turn on the radio or have music on one time that entire day. And so it's really those types of non-glamorous things that people don't see and people don't necessarily appreciate about the job. Yeah, it's a job where, you know, you're relying on someone else to agree with you in terms of a general manager for another team to make a trade and ultimately a free agent. It's the free agent's decision whether to sign with you or not, you may have done everything right, but ultimately that player may decide to go elsewhere. I'm curious, Kim, you're as a pioneer on two fronts. You're the first female general manager in major league history. You're also someone who comes from Asian descent. What about bigotry or sexism that you have faced? Not asking you to name names or anything like that, but since you've gotten the Marlins top job in 2020, have there been instances where you have faced bigotry from other people within the game? Tell us about that. Well, you know, I think many of us face unconscious bias on a fairly regular basis. I will say that in this job, I'm a lot more high profile. So I think a lot more people recognize me. And when that happens, I mean, I think, you know, people are understanding and, you know, it registers. But again, you know, going to the unconscious bias, you know, it's not just me. It's many people in everyday life. It's many people in everyday life, you know, face it, whether, you know, you're online at the grocery store or, you know, you're driving on the road or, you know, you just come into contact with people who are not very kind. It's, you know, it can be a tough road if you let it bother you too much. But the fact of the matter is we still face it. You know, I can tell you in this job, I've been fortunate where I haven't had anything incredibly overt in my career I have though. And, you know, those instances are, you know, they can be, well, they're always difficult. You know, there have been several that have been fairly painful and you have to find ways to deal with it. But I think, you know, I think, particularly for women now in this industry, it's, I believe it has gotten better. I think for it, I think it's gotten better with people like Jean Afterman and, you know, others, you know, Alyssa Knackin out there Rachel Balkovich who are high profile and, you know, together as a collective, you know, we're becoming not so much of a novelty, right? And where you don't just do a double take. We're not quite there yet, but, you know, we're working on it, you know? And I will say, I'll give you, I'll actually give you this story. It had been a while since I had been with a club when I got this job. You know, I've been with Major League Baseball for a good amount of time and things had changed, you know, where we were, where we saw more women as trainers and scouts and strength and conditioning coaches. And so while I knew the numbers and I knew we were, you know, we were increasing still to live that on a daily basis, I hadn't really experienced that. So when I first got here to spring training with the Marlins my first year, yeah, Donny and I had history, we knew each other and we were about a weekend to spring training and he said, hey, you're gonna come down to the clubhouse. And so of course my experience was, you know, I just wanted to give staff and players a chance to see me around the fields to, you know, to get used to seeing me before I met you down there. And that's what I said to him. I said, well, I was just giving people some time. I said, because, you know, I want to get them used to seeing a woman around. And he said, he said, I think we're past that. He said, you know, with all the trainers and strength and conditioning coaches, he goes, I don't think anybody gives it a second thought now. And so that was, you know, an incredibly, you know, meaningful, you know, anecdote for me, you know, because I think again, like in my mind, intellectually, you know that the numbers are rising, but still in terms of your actual experience, you know, and what I had been used to, you know, I had to in my mind proceed a certain way when in reality I didn't. And it was, you know, and somebody, you know, Donnie from his generation saying like, we're past that. So it was pretty eye-opening. And, you know, I will never forget that, you know, that anecdote because I think it was incredibly heartening for me, you know, knowing that, you know, a lot of these women who have just, you know, worked for years, you know, have worked their way up the ladder and, you know, worked their way into their, you know, dream positions. And, you know, as a group, it's just not, you know, we're not out of place anymore. You mentioned Alyssa Knackin. We had a chance to interview her a couple of years ago. The Lightful Person was really one of the most enjoyable interviews that we've done. She was hired by the Giants earlier in 2020. Here's one of your meetings with her. I don't know if this was the first or this came later on, but give us your thoughts on Alyssa. She's great. She's great, you know, and when she first got hired, I did not know who she was, you know, got the news and just reached out to the Giants, asked them for her email address so I could send her a congratulatory note. And at least it would give me a path to meet her, you know, at some point later on down the road. So when we finally did meet, you know, what a great person, really affable. I've checked in on her from time to time and, you know, from what everybody tells me, just incredibly knowledgeable players, lover, staff, loves her. And so those are the, I mean, those are the great stories in this business, you know, again, when somebody gets to fulfill their dream, you know, and impart their knowledge and just be treated as one of the staff, you know, for us women, I think, you know, that's what everybody strives for. But you have great representative, I think very gracious with her time and has handled her position tremendously. Over the next few minutes, I wanna take some questions in our chat room from some of our audience members. This first one comes from one of our YouTube watchers. Kim, it has been said that Ronnie, and I hope I'm pronouncing this name close to correct, Gajanik, caught your attention by asking some impressive questions at a seminar a few years ago. Do you remember anything in particular that she wanted to know? You familiar with this person? I am familiar with Ronnie. I don't remember, I'm sorry, I don't remember any particular questions that she asked, but I do remember taking note of her because I also felt like she was not somebody who was timid or shy and she was laying it out, you know, laying it all out on the table. I do also recall, she was on a Zoom call, I wanna say that I did, I can't remember which group it was, but she had great questions. She also emailed me later with other questions and I talked to her one-on-one. So she was somebody that, again, sometimes you just get a feeling about in terms of how they go about their business and what her demeanor was like, her personality and whether she was gonna really go after what she wanted and clearly she has. Got that feeling a good number of years ago, but she has made the most of her opportunity. It's fun to see her in uniform now. I think the latest story was that she was shadowing Tori Levulo this spring, so just couldn't be happier for her to get these opportunities. So she works for the Diamondbacks? Yeah. Okay, terrific. Another question from YouTube starts with a bit of an apology. I just arrived, so sorry if I'm repeating a question, but who was the biggest influence in Kim's youth? Well, that question we did not ask. We asked Kim her favorite player, Thurman Munson, but who was your biggest baseball influence as a youngster? Two, I guess I would answer it this way, maybe not baseball influence, but probably influence as a young person growing up. There are several. A couple that I talk about fairly often, Billie Jean King in her fight for equity and equality. Martina Navratilova was probably more of my era in watching tennis, but she was somebody that really changed, in my mind changed how we look at female athletes and I think she just changed the game in that realm and what women athletes could strive for. And then my mom and her three sisters and the trials and tribulations they went through in the 70s as working women in their 20s and what they had to fight for on a fairly daily basis at work and listening to their stories and how they handled themselves. We have a question coming in from a good friend of ours, the umpire, Perry Barber, and she has a question relating to Maybell Blair on this slide here. What is Kim's favorite wine from her vineyard and Perry is at Maybell's in LA right now and she is asking for a friend. I assume she's asking for Maybell. Oh boy, well, that just tells me that I own Maybell, another bottle of Pinot Noir. So this is kind of a funny story. So my husband owns a wine company, the name of it is Silas Wines. He's, they have their tasting room in Amity, Oregon. And so many of the names are named after various things of significance, Silas is the name of one of the partner's sons. And so because I'm the only person in the group that likes white wine, my husband and his partners wanted to name the white wine after me. And so he asked me to try and help him think of a name for the white wine in honor of me. And they were trying to come up with something like Kim's, something or other, and I said, no, no, no, no, we're not, we're not doing something so obvious. And so what it ended up being was at the time I was doing a lot of work internationally in Dominican and Venezuela and they, you know, no one could pronounce my last name, you know, NG spelled NG, which is Ang, obviously up in the United States. But no one could pronounce it. So when they look at my passport, they'd always say, Senora en Ajay, and en Ajay is NG in Spanish. So we decided to name the wine en Ajay. So if you look for that wine, that is the one that is named for me, the white. Very good. We have just a few minutes remaining with Kim Ang. I'm hoping that maybe not right now, but when this program is shown, it'll be recorded, it'll be shown in other venues. I'm hoping that some young girls, young women will have a chance to see it, learn from you. What advice Kim, do you have for them? If they want to pursue a career in baseball, especially in a front office job, what would you tell those young girls listening out there? Well, I would say this. I would say our game is, you know, is and has become very analytically inclined where many of the executives are analytically inclined. And so I think that we need to have a foundation in analytics, in statistics. And that would be one recommendation. I think the second recommendation would be this is an incredibly popular industry. And, you know, for every person that we have in a job here, there's tens of thousands of people that would, you know, love to take their place. So it's very competitive. And I think you always have to figure out and create a path for yourself where you can present yourself at, you know, which separates yourself from the group. So those are the two things I would say, you know, number three, you better be ready to work. This industry is not for the faint of heart. You know, we talked about working 100-hour weeks. And, you know, that's just the fact of the matter. So if you love it, you should absolutely pursue it because when you do it, there is nothing like it. Kim, what about the future in Major League Baseball? What do you feel is the next barrier for women to overcome in MLB? First player, first manager, first Major League umpire, what do you think might be the next hurdle that's toppled? I would say, say manager. Interesting. I'm not sure that we're that far off. I mean, I think we have some pretty interesting qualify, you know, getting their qualifications, you know, involved in their training right now. You know, I think umpire is not too far behind. Maybe they're neck and neck, but yeah, I think we've got some good candidates in the hopper. Interesting that you put manager before player. There are a lot of women working, not only in the Major League level, but also in minor League organizations as well. So there does seem to be a developing pool there. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think Major League Baseball has done a nice job of providing opportunity and access for the young women, you know, and girls that do have profound deep interest in the game. And so, you know, not just providing opportunity, but really trying to help develop these young women and connecting them to different Major League clubs, you know, to provide training ground for them. So I've been really happy with a lot of their formal programming that they've done over the last five years. Kim, a final question. What about your future? You're still young, you're in your early 50s, but do you see yourself remaining a GM for the rest of your baseball career? Or do you think maybe years down the line, you might do something else, become a broadcaster, an ambassador for a team? Have you thought at all about that? I'm just trying to get through today. That's the life of a general manager. You know, I will say that, you know, in terms of what I think beyond being a general manager, I really haven't gotten that far. Like I said before, the job is just so consuming. And I do feel a lot of responsibility to do my job well for those coming behind me. So I haven't thought about that. What comes next, but I'm sure when that, you know, when that time does come, I will embrace, you know, any, and well, I won't say any, but I will embrace a number of different opportunities. Yeah, should they cross my plate? Kim, we want to thank you. This has been a lot of fun. Very informative as well. Kim Ang, the general manager, I think you're going to have a lot of fun. This has been a lot of fun. Very informative as well. Kim Ang, the general manager of the Miami Marlins, really one of the pioneers within our game. We'd like to thank all the folks at the National Archives and also here at the Baseball Hall of Fame that have helped put our program together thanks to the audience members who have posed questions as well. Kim, thank you. Really, you appreciate your time over this past hour. Thank you, Bruce. Take care now. Appreciate it. Kim Ang, general manager of the Miami Marlins, a program delivered from the Marlins spring training site and from here in Cooperstown, New York, where we have about a foot of snow unfortunately. Thanks everybody for being with us. Have a great day. Take care.