Baseball’s first female manager misses opening game with gnarly injuries

RACHEL BALKOVEC was set to make history as she prepared to take charge of the Tampa Tarpons for the very first time.

The Yankees minor-league manager, 34, was due to make her historic debut as baseball’s first female manager on Thursday.

But two days before the first game of spring training, she received a brutal hit to the face courtesy of a stray ball.

Balkovec took to Instagram to show off her gnarly injuries, which include an extremely swollen and bruised left eye.

She wrote: “Well I *DID* have several modeling contracts lined up, but this put a wrench in those plans 😉

“Thanks for all of the messages – Just feeling extremely lucky, and also like I’ll never throw side flips again for the rest of eternity.

“This is why you have to life your life in a way that you’re okay leaving it at any moment. Not a minute to waste being, thinking or playing small.”

And just to make sure the modelling scouts were listening, she tagged Vogue, Elle and Ford Models to the post.

Omaha native Balkovec was a former softball catcher at Creighton University and the University of New Mexico.

She held a strength and conditioning role at the Houston Astros before returning to her studies in 2018, pursuing a second master’s degree at Vrije University in Holland.

Balkovec was hired by the New York Yankees as their full-time hitting coach, making her the first woman to take the position.

And earlier this year, she was announced as manager of their Class A minor league team, the Tarpons.

Part of the coaching staff for the 2021 All-Star Futures Game, Balkovec also headed Down Under to hone her coaching skills in Australia during the pandemic.

Speaking when announcing Rachel as manager in January, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred praised her ‘expertise and leadership’.

He said: “On behalf of Major League Baseball, I congratulate Rachel on this historic milestone.

“As manager of the Tampa Tarpons, she will continue to demonstrate her expertise and leadership in the Yankees’ organization.

We wish Rachel well in this new capacity and appreciate her mentorship to the growing network of women in baseball operations and player development roles.”