November 13, 2020: Kim Ng Becomes the 1st Female GM In American Sports

November 13, 2020: Kim Ng is named the general manager of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins. She is the 1st woman to be named GM of any team in North American major league sports. She is also the 1st person of Asian descent to hold such a post.

Despite her surname, pronounced "eng," she is not of Vietnamese ethnicity. The daughter of a Cantonese-American financial analyst and a Thai Chinese banker, she was born in 1968 in Indianapolis, but grew up in Queens, New York City. Her father was a sports nut, and she played softball and tennis at Ridgewood High School in Queens (not the one in nearby Ridgewood, Bergen County, New Jersey). She continued played softball at the University of Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in public policy.

She stayed in Chicago to get her first front-office job, as assistant director of baseball operations for the Chicago White Sox, working under GM Ron Scheuler, who had also pitched for the White Sox. In 1995, she became the 1st woman, and the youngest person, to present a salary arbitration case, against pitcher Alex Fernandez. She won.

That got the attention of not just the other 29 MLB organizations, but of the MLB offices, who are about holding down player salaries first, and protecting and promoting the sport second. In 1997, the American League hired her away from the White Sox, appointing her Director of Waivers and Records, meaning she had to decide whether to approve any transaction.

In 1998, Bob Watson left his post as GM of the New York Yankees, and his assistant, Brian Cashman, was promoted into that post. He offered Ng his former assistant's job. She held it through 2001, receiving 3 World Series rings. She was hired as assistant GM by the Los Angeles Dodgers, and held that post through the 2010 season. She then took a job as senior vice president of baseball operations for MLB, reporting to the president of baseball operations, former Yankee and Dodger manager Joe Torre.

It was working for Torre that led to her getting hired by the Marlins, because, at the time, the Marlins' CEO was former Yankee Derek Jeter. Jeter and the group he was with ended up selling the Marlins in 2022, but Ng has stayed, and is now responsible for one of the franchise's periodic rebuilding efforts.

She is married to Tony Markwand, who runs a winery in Oregon. She has no children.

UPDATE: The Marlins made the Playoffs in the 2023 season, but Ng resigned at the end of it, anyway, citing differences with how the rest of team management wanted to proceed. She became the Commissioner of Athletes Unlimited Pro Softball, the 1st serious attempt at a women's professional softball league.

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November 13, 2020 was a Friday -- a Friday the 13th. Certainly, it wasn't unlucky for Kim Ng. Baseball season was over. And, due to COVID restrictions having postponed the 2020 Playoffs in each league, the 2020-21 NBA and NHL seasons hadn't started yet.

There were 3 college football games played, including one with a Top 10 team, an intra-metro area rivalry, and a major trophy rivalry:

* The University of Cincinnati, then ranked Number 7, beat East Carolina, 55-17 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati.

* Florida Atlantic, based in Boca Raton, beat Florida International, 38-19 at Riccardo Silva Stadium in Miami. This rivalry is known as the Shula Bowl, complete with a trophy named the Don Shula Award, because both schools, relatively new to college football at the top level, had ties to Shula, the longtime Miami Dolphins head coach. FAU's 1st head coach, Howard Schnellenberger, who coached the University of Miami to the 1983 National Championship, was an assistant coach to Shula on the Super Bowl VII and VIII winners. And FIU's 1st head coach, Don Strock, was a backup quarterback for Shula's Dolphins a few years later.

* And Iowa beat Minnesota, 35-7 at TCF Bank Stadium (now Huntington Bank Stadium) in Minneapolis, for the bronze pig trophy known as Floyd of Rosedale.