Regular listeners of Yankees spring training games on WFAN radio have surely heard John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman lament the trip from Tampa to Lakeland. While there’s plenty to love about Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium -- the Tigers’ spring training home since 1966 -- getting there from George M. Steinbrenner Field is never easy. Although it’s a straight shot about 40 miles east along Interstate 4, the route always seems to be jam-packed with cars, trucks and buses. Such was the case during a typical Friday afternoon rush hour in early April. While the big-league club engaged in an Opening Day battle with the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, the Low-A Tampa Tarpons found themselves creeping along that ever-crowded corridor, past the palm trees and Dinosaur World, en route to their own first game of the season.

It is a ride with which many of the energetic young ballplayers seated in the back half of the bus were familiar. Jasson Dominguez, the exciting outfield prospect, spent the majority of his first professional season with the Tarpons in 2021 traversing Florida’s highways and byways. And though he just turned 19 in February, he has already earned the all-important role of bus DJ, pumping out pulsing reggaeton tracks from a boombox that his teammates spontaneously sang along to as they crawled toward their opener against the Lakeland Flying Tigers.

Seated in the front row, the team’s 34-year-old manager opened up an Excel spreadsheet on a laptop computer and began analyzing the day’s agenda. Hitting coach Kevin Martir, a 28-year-old Brooklyn native who played baseball at the University of Maryland and in the minors, acted as a sounding board as they reviewed procedures and tweaked the next day’s schedule. Seated behind Martir, two veteran defensive coaches, Antonio Pacheco and Michel Hernández, quietly contemplated the game ahead as the bus slowly made its way east.

April 8 marked the managerial debut for the Tarpons’ skipper, who joined the Yankees organization as a Minor League hitting coach in November 2019. Upon taking the role, the manager expressed a desire to establish a culture that fosters competition and fun -- but as the team bus finally rolled into the parking lot less than an hour before first pitch, the thought of everyone having to rush to get ready offered unwelcome added stress.

The day had been a busier-than-busy whirlwind, but nothing too out of the ordinary for any Minor League Baseball team. Managers get paid to deal with so many moving parts. As the Tarpons players retrieved their equipment bags from beneath the bus and headed toward the visiting clubhouse, though, the skipper was reminded that there was something different about this day’s scenario.

Tigers director of Florida operations Ron Myers stood on the sidewalk alongside the unloading zone, ready to welcome Rachel Balkovec, affiliated baseball’s first female manager, to Lakeland. He invited her to follow him toward a visiting manager’s locker room set up especially for her, separate from the area where her players were getting dressed.

Balkovec understands that her gender makes her stand out in a male sport, and she recognizes that certain adjustments will need to be made. But she also sees no reason to make changes where none are necessary, so she headed into the clubhouse just as any male skipper would.

A short while later, Balkovec emerged in her blue Tarpons uniform with the No. 22 on the back. She expressed gratitude for Myers’ patience and explained that she had told the Flying Tigers she wanted to stay near her team. All business, a stone-faced Balkovec nonetheless agreed to stop and see the satellite visiting manager’s office. There, she was faced with another reminder of her unique stature in the sport.

Every inch of the room -- the door, the walls, the mirrors -- had been plastered with handwritten notes from local elementary school children. In marker, paint, pen and crayon, young girls (and boys) crafted messages of support, encouragement and gratitude: “We’re proud of you!” “Your (sic) an inspiration!” Looking at a paper printout of a baseball with the words “I believe I can…” printed on it alongside the words “do anything” written in the blank space, Balkovec couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.

“We just wanted to make you feel special,” Myers said.

That barely begins to describe the impact of the night -- for Balkovec, for the Yankees organization, for women and for baseball.

***

Over the winter, before this season began, Yankees Minor League outfielder Ryder Green told his family that he hoped to start the year in Tampa so that he could play in Balkovec’s first game. “It’s a big deal,” he says. “It’s an honor to be a part of it, to be a part of history.”

Green is one of many Tarpons who got to know Balkovec when she was a hitting coach. They laud her ability to lead and to foster competition while keeping things fun and upbeat. The louder the music, she insists, the better. Her communication skills -- in both Spanish and English -- are also widely praised. There’s a comfort level that allows guys to go out and perform, knowing that their manager has their back and vice versa.

“She’s a master chef at creating environments that draw the best out of people,” says Ryan Hunt, a roving Minor League infield and outfield instructor for the Yankees who worked closely with Balkovec this spring. “Earlier today, I was trying to reflect on the significance of this moment, and it’s really hard to in the present, because we just view Rachel as an excellent coach who’s going to have a huge impact on the players in this organization, regardless of her gender and regardless of what she’s doing for the first time in history.”

Balkovec has spent a decade in professional baseball in a variety of coaching roles for several different organizations. She views managing as a way to better understand all facets of the game, so that when she reaches her stated goal of one day becoming a Major League general manager, she’ll be as prepared as she can possibly be. Still, while she has undoubtedly shown the type of leadership characteristics that made it easy for Yankees vice president of player development Kevin Reese to name her to the position, manager is a brand-new role for Balkovec. And from allotting players the proper amount of time in the batting cages before the game to deciding when to exit the team bus -- “The manager has to get off first,” Martir insists -- everything is new.

She’s bound to make mistakes -- “I’ve already made about a billion,” she says -- but her support is unwavering, both from the organization itself as well as the players, who see a leader willing to adapt if it means getting better.

“She wants to learn,” says infielder Ben Cowles. “She even said, ‘Hey, if you guys don’t like something or you guys want to change something, tell me. Help me help you guys.’ So, I think that makes for an awesome environment to be around.”

***

The environment at a Low-A Minor League game, even on Opening Day, is often fun, but rarely “awesome.” On the same day over in Jupiter, the Hammerheads drew just 540 fans to Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium for their season opener against the Palm Beach Cardinals. But the Flying Tigers, again showing their support for Balkovec, had the foresight to invite female student-athletes from every high school in Polk County to come witness history. More than 1,200 girls took them up on the offer, with the Detroit Tigers Foundation donating nearly $15,000 worth of tickets.

The day was already going to be special. Daughters took their fathers by the hand and pointed with excitement at the woman with the ponytail giving orders to dozens of young men in the outfield during pregame warmups. A toddler wearing a shirt that said “Never underestimate the power of women and girls” patrolled the area behind the Tarpons’ dugout. While Balkovec signed autographs for her many supporters, a man wearing a Nike T-shirt with just the word “Equality” emblazoned on the front -- with two of the letters replaced by a “42” and featuring a silhouette of Jackie Robinson -- looked on with interest.

But it was the young women wearing athletic gear of Fort Meade cheerleading, Ridgeview track, McKeel softball and so on that made the environment truly awesome. Few of them had ever been to a professional baseball game -- Major League or otherwise -- but when they heard about Balkovec’s history-making appearance in Lakeland, they came out to the ballgame by the busload.

An enthusiastic crowd that would eventually swell to 2,893 mostly young, mostly female fans shrieked with delight as Balkovec ran out to the third-base line for opening introductions. In a game that would feature nine pitching changes and take 3 hours and 27 minutes to complete, the positive energy never waned.

Tarpons starter Tyrone Yulie’s strikeout of Daneurys De La Cruz with two runners aboard to end the first prompted a leaping fist pump off the mound from the 20-year-old right-hander -- and chants of “Let’s Go, Rachel!” as Balkovec jogged out to the first-base coach’s box. In the middle of the second inning, the public-address announcer tried to read an ad for a local Hooters restaurant but was drowned out by the girls in Section 211 chanting “R.B.! R.B.!”

“It made me feel like, ‘Yes, finally women are being seen,’” said Sy’Riah Lomilus, a ninth grader who is a member of the drill team at Haines City High School. “Women are being seen, and we’re not being taken for granted anymore. We can do the same things men can do, and we can do it even better.”

“It was shocking to find out that we were making history right here in Florida,” said Anuja Seeram, a 10th grader at Haines City who participates in her school’s Junior ROTC program. “It was such an empowering moment for women’s history, watching a woman walk out on the baseball field. It was truly amazing.”

In between consulting with her players and coaches, arguing with the umpires and doing whatever else she could to manage the Tarpons to victory, Balkovec couldn’t possibly ignore all the cheers, so she politely smiled and waved to the crowd at the appropriate times. The requited love only amplified the vibe in Joker Marchant. Soon after Antonio Gomez’s bases-clearing triple in the fifth gave Tampa a 4-3 lead, the young crowd started doing the wave, not out of boredom but out of pure happiness.

“I’m having a lot of fun tonight. I’m bonding with my people,” 11th grader Shaniah Laguerre said of her first baseball game. “I don’t think [Balkovec] knows it, but she’s doing an amazing thing here.”

***

The tightly contested game was tied, 4-4, in the seventh when the Tarpons’ 6-foot-5 switch-hitting first baseman, Anthony Garcia, stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. He swung at a 2-0 pitch from right-hander Francisco Jimenez and launched it deep to right field. In a moment that would be replayed on that night’s edition of SportsCenter immediately following highlights of the Yankees’ 11-inning win over the Red Sox, Balkovec held both arms out parallel to the ground as she watched the ball fly over the wall, a soaring moment of celebration and relief that allowed her to exhale near the end of a long and arduous first day on the job.

“When Garcia broke it open with that grand slam, I could finally breathe,” she said later. “I finally felt hungry from the day.”

The Flying Tigers had the tying run on deck in the bottom of the ninth, but reliever Zach Messinger came in and struck out Justice Bigbie to seal the first win for a female manager in baseball history. Messinger handed the ball to Balkovec, and the postgame handshake line became a hug line as every Tarpons player embraced their skipper.

“I just love this team, and it’s not just because we won tonight,” Balkovec said. “They’re just my brothers and my sons. I don’t know if I was relaxed at all, but it was more calming and I was more comfortable because I know that they’re right behind me and they definitely support me. It makes everything so much easier and so much more fun. And I feel the same way about them. I’m going to work really hard for them, and they’re going to work really hard for me, so this is a best-case scenario for a new manager.”

As the postgame fireworks display lit up the Lakeland sky, Balkovec spent a good 20 minutes signing autographs for the hundreds of fans who crowded down near the Tarpons dugout to congratulate her. Two authenticators prepared to collect her cap and jersey for transport to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And the Tarpons players beamed in the afterglow of a victory that meant the world to them.

“From the first day we started practicing, we knew this whole season is definitely going to be for her,” said Anthony Seigler, the Yankees’ first-round pick in 2018 who went 1-for-4 as the designated hitter against Lakeland. “I was just in awe of how many people came out to support her. It was fantastic to see. The atmosphere was jumping from the start. The chants of ‘Let’s go, Rachel!’ -- it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Dominguez, the Yankees’ top-rated outfield prospect per MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline, figures to have a long and successful career ahead of him. Asked if he thinks he’ll remember Balkovec’s debut 20 years from now, “The Martian” was unequivocal.

“Hundred percent. Hundred percent,” Dominguez said, waving off Martir’s offer to translate from Spanish and answering instead on his own in English. “I’ll never forget this day. Never. Like the day I signed with the Yankees. The same.”

Balkovec will also remember her first game. It was a welcome burst of light after many dark days along the road less traveled. Not long ago, there were tearful phone calls to her parents, Bonnie and Jim, back home in Nebraska. On April 8, 2022, Bonnie and Jim sat in the third row watching their daughter break down yet another barrier while a stadium full of young females chanted her name.

And while paving the way for women in sports is important to Balkovec, as is acknowledging all those who came before her whose example and support have helped make her own journey possible, the Tarpons skipper looks ahead, and the fact that a few of those young athletes chanting her name might have fallen in love with baseball after such an unforgettable night is not lost on her.

“That’s definitely a part of what I think about on a daily basis and on a macro level: drawing young people to the game, female or male,” Balkovec said. “I think it’s incredible that this moment transcends sports. They don’t know about Minor League Baseball, but they showed up for this moment. Sports bring so many different people together from different backgrounds and, in my case, a different gender. And once you’re together, you realize you’re all just human beings. So, I’m glad this was their first game, and I hope they come back.”

There won’t always be thousands of fans who come out to support Balkovec. (The Tarpons’ game the next day at Lakeland drew 585 paying customers.) Nor will there be national media covering her every move. But there will always be tons of eyes on the manager with the ponytail -- something Balkovec has gotten plenty used to over her years in baseball. And, more importantly, she has learned that she can rely on the unwavering support of her players.

As the team bus pulled out of the parking lot at Joker Marchant Stadium a few minutes before 11 p.m., Balkovec apologized for making everyone wait while she handled the myriad postgame responsibilities. The players, a bit tired but immensely proud after delivering a win they so badly wanted, gave her some good-natured ribbing by echoing the crowd’s chants of “Rachel! Rachel!”

Balkovec cracked a smile as she left her “sons” to their boombox in the back of the bus.

“Let’s go home.”

The 2022 Tampa Tarpons had 131 more games to play, and miles to go along I-4 before they could sleep.