Photo courtesy of Bianca Smith
Bianca Smith’s journey is a testament to the fact that much of life is about perspective.
Less than two years ago, Smith was in the Boston Red Sox organization as the first female African-American on-field coach in Major League Baseball (MLB), a step toward her then-goal of becoming manager of a big league team. Now, she’s coaching middle-schoolers in a town in the far north of Japan that boasts a population of approximately 8,000, with a side gig assisting Great Britain’s women’s national baseball team and its under-23 men’s team.
But while some might see that as a setback, she sees it as a positive step.
It’s perspective, you know.
“I’ve always been into Japanese culture, even as a small child,” Smith said recently prior to meeting with an Extra Innings Travel group at a game in Sapporo between the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and Orix Buffaloes. “After college, I considered applying for the JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) program, but I decided to wait and build up my baseball experience to give me a better chance to coach baseball in Japan. Now, I’m here as part of the JET program.
“I’ve been a baseball fan since I was three or four years old and have always loved Japanese baseball,” she continued. “I enjoy amateur ball here and now have the certification to coach high school, but, as long as I’m here, I don’t particularly care at what level I’m coaching.
“This is a dream job, something I’d really wanted to do. It’s been a goal of mine for 14-15 years. I’ve always wanted to work in baseball in Japan.”
So how did Smith arrive at this point in her journey? As with most people, it’s a story with twists, turns, and various stops along the way.
She was born in New Jersey but moved to Texas at a young age, later serving as co-captain of her high school softball team. Then she followed in her parents’ footsteps by attending Dartmouth College, where she played varsity softball and club baseball, and graduated in 2012 with a degree in sociology. While at Dartmouth, she also kept busy by working for the varsity baseball team, starting a sports business club, and working at the college radio station, in the dining halls, and at the bookstore.
“I was injured my senior year and couldn’t play softball because of hip surgery,” she said. “My coach offered to let me quit. She said they’d completely understand – that it’s a lot of commitment for somebody unable to play. But I was vehement that I wanted to do whatever I could to remain a part of the team and help however I could. That turned out to be a valuable leadership role.”
Her next stop was Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland from 2013 to 2017, and she earned a J.D. degree and an MBA while also serving as director of operations for the school’s baseball team.
In 2018, she interned in the baseball operations department of the Texas Rangers, as well as at MLB corporate headquarters, and was a volunteer assistant for the University of Dallas baseball team. The next year, she was a baseball operations trainee with the Cincinnati Reds and was then hired as assistant athletics director, assistant coach, and hitting coordinator for Carroll University in Wisconsin.
Then came the opportunity with the Red Sox in late 2020.
“It was totally unexpected,” Smith said. “I didn’t know anyone with the Red Sox, but someone in Human Resources with the club saw my profile and asked if I’d be interested.
“I’d never seen another black woman coaching, especially in baseball,” she added, “so it just never crossed my mind that that might be an opportunity. It was always people in the front office, so my initial goal was general manager.”
The job originally was to be a hybrid, but later evolved into an on-field coaching position. That worked for Smith, who had once considered a front-office career but eventually discovered that she was happiest working on the field. She was assigned to the club’s rookie-league complex in Fort Myers, FL, and worked there until 2023, primarily with outfielders and on base-running skills. She also had a coaching stint with Scottsdale in the 2022 Arizona Fall League.
Photo Credit: Billie Weiss/Getty Images
At the time of her hiring, she said, “I didn’t see myself as a role model before this. I’m recognizing that people are inspired by this story. I’ve had people reach out and say that I am now their role model, and it’s still kind of weird to think about, to be honest, since it really wasn’t my intention when I took the job. But I’m happy if my story can inspire other women, other women of color, other people of color — really, anybody.”
The experience there was valuable from the experience standpoint, and Smith had a multi-year offer to continue, but decided to look for other opportunities that she felt would be more challenging.
“They wanted to send me back to rookie ball and I had no desire to be there, so I decided to take my chances,” Smith said a few months after leaving the Red Sox. “Everyone I know who stays at rookie ball [for a long period of time] does so because they have families and they like the lifestyle. I was ready to travel more. My passion is (game) strategy, [but] rookie ball is almost entirely player development.”
She says now that she eventually felt “undervalued…maybe they hired me for the wrong reasons, I don’t know. Regardless, I mostly loved my time with the Red Sox and still stay in touch with many coworkers and players I coached. I know it was a very valuable experience. I learned a lot, and my time there gave me a lot of credibility [in Japan]. It’s still very patriarchal here, but having professional coaching experience in my background makes things easier.”
In the off-season following the 2023 campaign, Smith applied for some open positions with MLB teams but did not land any interviews, which surprised her. Nonetheless, Smith then had another chance to participate in the JET program and took it.
“The previous opportunity with JET was just after I’d taken the job with the Red Sox. This time, it was just after I’d left the team, so I figured that it was a sign,” she said with a laugh.
Smith works in Higashikawa, which is in the northern part of the island of Hokkaido and about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Sapporo.
Officially, she is a Sports Exchange Advisor (SEA) in the role of first assistant for the middle school team, while also assisting with other sports and occasionally teaching English classes. She said that only ten of the approximately 6,000 participants in the JET program are SEAs. As a coach, she specializes in hitting, outfield play, and analytics, with a particular passion for defensive strategy and base running, aspects on which Japanese teams place a strong focus. She becomes animated when discussing the nuances of sliding, for example.
“You see kids that are scared to slide at first, and it’s great to see them really have fun with it when they learn how to do it properly,” she said.
What the future holds is unclear. She just signed up for a third year in the JET program, but JET does not allow people to continue for more than five years. For the moment, she’s simply trying to learn as much and experience as many things as possible.
“It’s the idea of getting different experiences and adding tools MLB doesn’t have,” she said. “There’s a huge focus on baserunning in Japan, and I want to bring that over.”
She learned some Spanish while working with the Red Sox and is now learning Japanese, as well as Mandarin and Korean. A tall order, but those language skills would be a significant asset.
“Spanish has gotten to be almost a requirement in MLB since there are so many Spanish-speaking players. Now, though, I think my Japanese is better than my Spanish,” she said with a chuckle. “The Asian languages, though – there are more players coming to MLB from Asia now, and we don’t have many coaches who speak those languages.”
The longer-term outlook is less clear. She has stayed in contact with some MLB teams and also been in touch with several NPB teams, but says, “There are very few women working in NPB, and there is also a resistance to hiring people who don’t have professional playing experience.”
She acknowledged that “It’s [been] harder to get back into pro ball than I thought it would be. But I don’t regret my decision [to leave]. I think I’d be more upset in a job in which I was unhappy and where I [wasn’t] growing.”
At this point, she says that she would prefer to stay in Japan – “I love it here; If I ever went back to the U.S., it would have to be for a really good job.” At one point, her goal was to be the general manager of a team. Later, it was to become a manager. Now, she’d prefer to be a base coach, which would mean less visibility and more focus on game strategy.
Regardless, she wants to stay in baseball in some capacity.
As she put it, “There are very few other things I’d choose to do if I had the opportunity to go to a baseball game.”
[To hear more about Bianca, view the following video from the Japanese public broadcaster NHK: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/2087128/]
