Former Oregon softball player makes MLB history
EUGENE, Ore. – Sara Goodrum’s field of dreams has become a reality.
The former Oregon softball player was promoted last week to the position of minor league hitting coordinator of the Milwaukee Brewers.
The 27-year-old Goodrum is the first woman to have that role in any Major League Baseball organization.
Goodrum didn’t consider the gravity of being a female in a male-dominated profession while spending the last three seasons in the Brewers’ sports science department.
“It just becomes your normal way of life,” Goodrum said during an interview with The Register-Guard. “Everyone that I’ve interacted with has been so supportive.
“So I never really thought about the gender part of it a lot.”
This has been a monumental year for women breaking down barriers in sports.
Notable glass ceiling breakers include Becky Hammon (first woman to serve as a head coach in an NBA game), Sarah Fuller (first woman to play in a college football game at the Power Five level), Callie Brownson
(first woman to coach a position group in a regular-season NFL game) and Sarah Thomas (preparing to be the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl).
When Kim Ng was named the general manager of the Miami Marlins in November – the first woman to ascend to the role of full-time general manager in any of the major men’s leagues in North America – Goodrum was inspired to dream about the possibilities for advancement in MLB.
“That’s kind of when it hit me a little bit more because, for me, I finally saw someone at such a high point in their career,” Goodrum said. “Becoming a general manager is a really big deal. So for me to be able to see, holy cow, the sky could be the limit for me, look at what Kim Ng just did.
“That’s when it made me kind of like sit back and think, ‘OK, what could this type of position that I’m in now do for younger women coming up?’ ”
Ng reached out to Goodrum to congratulate her on the ascension.
“I think it’s great for the organization, for Milwaukee,” Ng told MLB.com. “I think it’s great for baseball to put another woman in a more visible position for others to see.”