After making history, Bianca Smith has left the Red Sox
Bianca Smith made headlines when she was hired in January 2021 as the first Black women's coach in professional baseball history. CNN, BBC and People Magazine were among the media outlets that published stories about the newest Boston Red Sox minor league coach.
Two years later, Smith left the Red Sox organization with much less fanfare, leaving a multi-year offer on the table because she says she didn't feel challenged.
“They wanted to send me back to rookie ball and I didn't feel like being there, so I decided to take my chance,” Smith said in a telephone interview with The Athletics. “Everyone I know who stays in Rookie Ball (for a long period of time) does so because they have a family and love the lifestyle. I was ready to travel more. My passion is (game) strategy and rookie ball is almost entirely player development.”
Smith isn't giving up on returning to the MLB. She turns. The 31-year-old moved to Japan last summer and coaches elementary and middle school baseball through the JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) program, which she called a “bucket list” item. Smith also recently accepted jobs with the Great Britain women's national baseball team and the 23 and under Great Britain baseball team.
Smith's goal for this part of her coaching career is to be a sponge and soak up as much information and different experiences as possible. Defensive strategies and baserunning are Smith's passion, a style of baseball more popular in Japan.
By the end of this year she will have coached in five countries on three continents. In addition to learning Japanese, Smith is working on learning Chinese and Korean.
“Everyone (in the MLB) speaks Spanish now, it almost feels like a requirement,” she said. “But how many coaches do we have who speak those languages? There are so many players from here, and more coming, and the only thing Asian players usually have is their translators. There is a huge focus on baserunning in Japan and I want to convey that. It's the idea of having different experiences and adding tools that MLB doesn't have.”
Smith made her decision to leave the Red Sox in the late fall of 2022, which meant most other teams had limited openings for the following season. Smith wasn't surprised she wasn't immediately offered another job: Rookie-level positions are often the last ones open.
This offseason, however, has been a different story. Smith applied for several open positions and says she did not get an interview.
“That was surprising,” said Smith, who was open when she was hired by Boston that she had bigger goals: becoming the first Black woman to coach in the Major Leagues.
Smith is a graduate of Dartmouth, where she was the only woman on the club's softball team, and has two college degrees: one in sports business, the other in sports law. She interned with the Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers and Major League Baseball and served as an assistant coach and hitting coordinator at Carroll University in Wisconsin before the Red Sox hired her.
“I don't want to say anything bad about the Red Sox, I enjoyed my time there, but there is a part of me that believes if I had come in as an ethnic man I would have progressed,” Smith said. “I don't like the attention, I try to be modest, but I realize my CV is insane. I went through a lot to get that rookie ball job, which is why I was surprised I didn't get a team interested in talking about a position after all I've done.
“Looking back, I believe I would have had a better chance of continuing if I hadn't been a woman in the game. There may have been things happening behind the scenes that I didn't know about. But every sector has to deal with politics. I haven't had any problems on the field.”
The Red Sox declined to comment on the details of Smith's contract offer, but Red Sox director of player development Brian Abraham said: “Bianca ultimately decided to pursue other opportunities within baseball which we respect and (we) certainly give her the best wishes. During her time with the Red Sox, it was exciting to watch her continually grow as a staff member. It was a pleasure to work with her.”
Even if Smith doesn't get an offer from a pro team, she has a contract in Japan until August 2026, allowing her to be picky about what she does next.
Smith says she no longer dreams of being a big league manager, and that in a perfect world she would rather be a starting coach. Less attention, more strategy. Smith shunned the media firestorm that accompanied her historic appointment, taking a month and a half before making it public that she had left the Red Sox. She says she now has some regrets about it.
“I didn't appreciate the possibility of that attention,” said Smith, who started a blog with the name Go be the first to document her adventures abroad. “I grew up believing that coaches should be behind the scenes, but now I wish I had done more with (the attention) and used it as a platform. It's not just that I'm not in professional football, it's that I was the only black woman. And now there's no one for black girls to look to.
“I've had a chance to take a step back and think about what I've done. When I got the job, I kept telling people, “I'm not done yet, let's talk about it later.” Obviously I'm still not done, but I did something that no one has done before. I've had a few interviews here in Japan with different newspapers, that not only was I the first black woman in the MLB, but now I'm here in Japan as a coach. Now it dawned on me, “Okay, I've done something great.” I see that and want to do even more.”
Smith said she misses the players she coached and is still in touch with many of them, as well as her former colleagues.
“Most of them understood and supported my decision. They know what my goals are, how ambitious I can be. Maybe I'm a little impatient, but I bear no ill will,” she said. “It's harder to turn pro again than I thought. But I don't regret my decision (to leave). I think I would be more upset in a job where I wasn't happy and where I'm not growing.”
(Top photo of Smith in 2021: Billie Weiss / Boston Red Sox via Getty Images)