Professional baseball is opening more job opportunities for women.
In recent years, that has included the first female general manager for the Miami Marlins, and the first on-field female coach with the San Francisco Giants.
Looking back on her first baseball tryouts at age 8, Lynchburg Hillcats Assistant Hitting Coach Amanda Kamekona realized she had a knack for swinging the bat right away.
She grew up in California, and her mom lived down the street from Dodger Stadium.
“I fell in love with (baseball), especially the hitting part. And my parents realized, I think maybe we’ve got something here.”
Prior to baseball, the only sport she had participated in at that time was karate. But by high school, she had also participated in water polo, gymnastics, tennis, and volleyball.
“I just loved being active,” Amanda said. “I don’t think (the schedule) really hit me personally until maybe about high school age, when you start trying out for your local high school team.”
By time she got to her junior year, her parents explained that she’d have to seek out a scholarship to get into college, Kamekona transitioned to softball. She was the first person in her immediate family to attend college.
“I always knew I wanted to coach in some capacity, but my parents are very realistic too, so make sure you setting, if that doesn’t work out, to fall back on.”
While at Cal State Fullerton, she’d studied psychology and criminal justice as a backup while, and also had notions of becoming an attorney.
“At that time, it’s - wake up, eat, sleep, breathe, live softball – especially when you’re in college,” she explained. “Ok, that’s like my plan – D,E, and F, but ABC is softball!”
When transferring to UCLA, she had to change her major to sociology in order to keep playing softball (a number of class credits didn’t transfer.) But that also just a minor bump in the road.
“I knew I wanted to coach at a young age,” she said. “Now, if you told me at a young age that I would be coaching (with the Hillcats) - that was definitely not on my mind.”
Kamekona did enjoy a lengthy career with National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) professional women’s softball league, and coaching high school and college teams.
A few years ago, she got a text message from an old friend. Rachel Folden played against Kamekona in high school and college, and they were teammates in pro softball.
Now a hitting coach with the Chicago Cubs’ minor league affiliate in Iowa, Folden told her Cleveland was seeking a hitting coach, and was asked if she knew anyone.
She also asked if gender mattered – the Guardians said no.
“(Rachel) was like – I got a guy (she laughs.) We always joke about that.”
Kamekona said the Guardians’ interview process took a while. She also did a week-long coaching trial, and was hired a few months later, joining the organization in 2023.
She said the Guardians said is supportive of a coach’s professional growth, but not quite the same play ballplayers move through a minor league system.
Kamekona explained the growth for a coach is often a combination of what someone personally feels they need to develop a little more, or be exposed to professionally, paired with rounding out staffs. She also wanted to work with Hillcats hitting coach Cole Nieto for a season.
“Everyone’s goal is to make it to ‘the show’, there’s just a lot of steps that I want to make sure that I get exposed to, and experience and do, before I say, ‘I’m ready for that.”
At 39, Kamekona is solely focused on coaching, saying her playing days are in the past. It’s a time when women’s softball is getting a boost from Major League Baseball, announcing a partnership with the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, which started its inaugural season June 7.
“AU getting the support from MLB, and recognition as a legitimate league is huge,” she explained. “It’s something softball has been waiting – for a very long time.”
She also said there’s a slippery slope to go down if you start with the “what if’s.”
“There’s a lot of athletes that have paved the way, even before me, that were knocking down doors and doing things” she states. “There always going to have to be people that are the first, that are pioneering stuff. I just feel like that’s not the best lens to probably look at things – that’s not the hand you were dealt. You have a different purpose.”
Kamekona is thrilled with her job a few months into the season, a team that will compete in the playoffs after leading the Carolina League North through the first half of the season.
In March, Major League Baseball recognized Kamekona and her friend Folden as two of the eight game-changing women in baseball today.
Looking back, Amanda has two favorite moments as player – getting her uniform when playing for UCLA, and the second came when making the College World Series with that team in 2008.
At that moment, she looked at the Jumbotron, which displayed the batting leaders for the tournament. She was at the top.
“I had no clue,” she said. “So I remember looking to the stands and trying to find (my parents.) I remember seeing them, and that moment – I remember feeling so happy, and proud that I was making them proud.”
