'Have to love what you're doing': Innovative women drive BlueClaws' baseball success

When Jamie Wagner decided to pursue a new career in the sports industry, there had already been a strong precedent for women in baseball.

There had been trailblazing players like Julie Croteau in the 1980s and Ila Borders in the 1990s, both playing men's baseball at the NCAA Division III level. Croteau would go on to become an assistant coach at the D-I level with the University of Massachusetts. More recently, there was Ridgewood alumni Kim Ng, who served as a general manager of the Miami Marlins; and Freehold Township native Caroline O'Connor, who joined the Marlins in 2017 is currently their president of business operations. There is also Olivia Pichardo, who currently plays for Brown University and is the first female athlete to play D-I baseball.

But even with all the unconventional paths that had been previously treaded for women to enter the sport, Wagner's journey to the Jersey Shore BlueClaws might have blazed yet another new trail.

"When I considered moving jobs, my mom was sick and was battling cancer, coming through all of that she started to get to a point where she was good. And I started getting to a point where I wanted to start taking care of myself and put myself first," Wagner explained.

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The beginning of her journey started in a somewhat unexpected place.

"I called my mom and without any context, I said, 'You want to go to Vegas?'" Wagner recalled. "She screamed into the phone: 'Yes!'"

A big hockey fan, there was a job fair for careers in the sport in Las Vegas. The impromptu trip was the impetus for a new job in the sports industry.

"We were there for 48 hours. We touched down and my mom and my sister went and had bottomless mimosas," said Wagner. "And I went to a job fair that changed my life."

When she got back, Wagner provided a two-month notice to her job at the time, a women's boutique, and began scouring for opportunities. First it was an internship with a summer baseball team, the Oneonta Outlaws. Now at age 36, Wagner joked that she must've been the oldest intern the team had ever had.

After that, it was more than 360 job applications and 20 in-person interviews to find the right opportunity. She had a job offer in Reno, but decided to follow through on an interview with the Jersey Shore BlueClaws.

"I felt like my heart's set, I'm gonna go to Reno. And then I pulled up to (ShoreTown Ballpark)," Wagner said. "I was like, I'm probably gonna be here for 30 minutes. They're not going to take me seriously."

However serendipitous it might've been to return to a Nevada casino town to start her career in sports, the opportunity in Lakewood was too good to pass up.

"My interview lasted for three-and-a-half hours. It was all about figuring out who I was as a person and how I could add to this team," she continued. "When I walked out of here, I knew that this was where I belonged."

'That personal touch of my own.'

The Jersey Shore BlueClaws, formerly Lakewood BlueClaws, have played in Lakewood since 2001 and are in the minor leagues' South Atlantic League and affiliated with the Philadelphia Phillies. According to figures provided by the team, last year's average game home attendance of 4,793 was a 12% increase over 2022. The 2024 season opens with a home game Friday, April 5.

The road to the BlueClaws for Wagner was not without further challenges. She started with the team in the fall of 2019 but was furloughed during the pandemic in 2020. Now in her fifth year with the team, she is the director of retail operations and ticket sales manager. And with more oversight over product curation and design, one of the highlights of her job came last fall.

"We went to a playoff game last year, and seeing one of the coaches just wearing something that I designed," said Wagner. "The thing that he was wearing existed because of my brain, and like I thought that was the coolest thing ever."

Wagner's journey is an example of the differing paths women take into the sports industry. Continued progress has meant there are more lanes for a variety of skillsets and backgrounds. Jersey Shore's director of promotions and entertainment, Gianna Fiocco, also had no background in sports or baseball. Around the same time that Wagner started, Fiocco's interest was sparked by two team officials to her sports marketing class at Kean University back in 2019. Over five years, her career blossomed from intern to her current role.

"I feel like I can kind of pour myself into what we do here at the ballpark," said Fiocco, 26. "I still get that personal touch of my own in there as well, and I get to really be creative and try think outside of the box and make everything still enjoyable for the fans."

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For a former marketing major, the world of minor league baseball is ideal in terms of autonomy and creativity. No longer encumbered by the buttoned up professionalism of the old school past, the club affiliates are a playground of marketing where it seems no idea is too outlandish. Last year, the Tulsa Drillers wore alternate denim-vested uniforms and the Eugene Emeralds wore alternates commemorating the infamous exploding whale of 1970. The Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp hosted a night dedicated to Swedish furniture with an assembly contest for patrons.

"Our marketing department, we try very hard to really collaborate as a group. So we'll have a lot of meetings of like, what are your ideas? What do you think works well with us? And we kind of toss things around together," Fiocco said. "We try to like collaboratively work together because I have younger women who work with me, I have older women who work with me."

Innovative and fun marketing concepts seem to be more common as engagement for female consumers in sports is on the rise. According to a recent study by Deloitte, women were more likely to have watched a sporting event on television or in-person than their male counterparts in the past 12 months, regardless of whether they had previously played sports or not. They were also more likely to have purchased team merchandise.

'To be in a position to have a voice heard.'

While there's been an increase in avenues for women without backgrounds in athletics to make forays in the baseball world, there are still numerous women with sports experience that are also continuing to work in the field that they are passionate about. Amanda Biscardi is in her second season with the team and assists Fiocco with promotions in addition to handling social media. She played high school basketball for Robbinsville and her brother is in his first season as linebackers coach at Marist.

"Being able to put my creative side and sports altogether in one is something I really enjoy," Biscardi said.

Biscardi, 24, is part of a contingent of relative newcomers to the organization who hail from sports-oriented backgrounds. Suzanne Jackson and Angela DiNunzio are both former athletes who have joined the club in the past few months after graduating college, drawn in by their passion for sports and the strong track record of opportunities.

"I'm really passionate about women's sports in general and increasing efficacy and accessibility," said DiNunzio. "I think starting here with the BlueClaws is kind of like that first step in the direction to be able to be in a position to have a voice heard. And was the first step in my journey to be able to work my way up to having a significant impact."

Kaitlyn Kerrigan is among the newest additions to the BlueClaws, also bringing with her a deep desire to grow in the world of sports. She played soccer collegiately at Concord University and is currently an assistant coach for Brick Township, where she played in high school. But even that role wasn't enough to tame the sports bug.

"I got into sales for a bit and I was a travel agent. But then I was like, I need sports in my life. So that's kind of how I stumbled upon this opportunity," said Kerrigan. "How can I get involved (and) be involved in the community as well? And this was the perfect opportunity."

And back in the marketing department, Dani Britton and Taylor Pietrangelo both have gotten to blend their sports backgrounds with their creative pursuits. Britton played field hockey at TCNJ and was a graphic design major, and her first professional forays allowed her to utilize both her passions while working in baseball.

"I'm excited to get started here just because I actually have a game day role here, which is what I didn't have in my other job," said Britton. "So I am excited to experience game days for a professional sports team."

Pietrangelo had grown up going to BlueClaws games and playing softball, but initially went to college to pursue film before switching to sports media. Now, working as the team's videographer is a bit of a full-circle moment.

"I grew up in a sports household, my dad always had a game on or something," said Pietrangelo. "I never really saw a professional career in sports."

While she's still passionate about film, the opportunity to put her video skills to work in the sports realm has been a welcome surprise.

"At that age, I had no idea what I was going to be doing," said Pietrangelo. "So to be here now and think about all the things or school events that we did here, it is really fulfilling."

'If I could do this, anybody could do it.'

There is no doubt who has the greatest wealth of experience in baseball at the Jersey Shore BlueClaws, and as it happens she will likely be the first face one sees when entering the offices at ShoreTown Ballpark. Administrative coordinator Jane Rogers thought she was done with the industry when the team she spent two decades with, the Staten Island Yankees, folded during the restructuring of the minor leagues. But as hard as it is to break into a career in baseball, it might be just as hard to leave it behind.

"I wasn't ready to retire," said Rogers, 68. "They said, just come on board and help out where you can. Much younger staff obviously, lend any of your expertise to them wherever you can help and that's what I do. It's a little bit of everything. I love it. It keeps me young and keeps me working and it keeps my mind going."

With 25 years of experience in baseball, Rogers has not a lost a step since she climbed the ladder of the Staten Island team from receptionist to general manager to president. When she started with the team in 1999, she was a stay-at-home mom with kids in the eighth and ninth grade.

"I just started and I took on more and more," Rogers said. Her efforts were acknowledged early on by an assistant general manager in a manner worthy of minor league baseball, "He wrote me a note on a napkin from the concession stand and said, Jane, I didn't think you were gonna do this. I didn't think you were gonna make it. But everything we threw at you, you were able to handle it and excelled in ways we couldn't describe."

Later, her efforts were acknowledged more formally. She was named the 2018 New York-Penn League Executive of the Year. The following year she was inducted into the league's Hall of Fame. Whatever the drawbacks of her belated start to a career in baseball, her life experience up until that point proved to be a crucial benefit.

"I think for the Yankees I was the right age," said Rogers. "I was already an established woman. I had motherly instincts. They knew that I could handle the players, their families, their wives, their children if they had them. So that's how it all came together for me."

Despite the assets of her background prior to the start of her time with the Yankees, she still bemoans the notion of being a "team mom." Her disdain for the moniker was noted in the opening paragraph of a New York Times profile back in 2015. The cliche is on the wrong end of a fine line between acknowledging how her prior life experience was a boon to her career, and the label belittling the scope of her work.

The Brooklyn native is certainly proud of the accolades as a pioneering woman in baseball, but the open-ended simplicity of her work philosophy is universally inspiring. Rogers didn't limit the scope of possibility for her career when it began and, now 25 years later, she doesn't want to limit the scope of her influence for the next generation of people hoping for a career in baseball. Rogers makes that clear when assessing the foundation she helped build over the course of her career.

"I don't feel that way just for women, I feel that way for men too. For the young folks that worked for me throughout the years that went on, that sometimes didn't wanna leave," Rogers said. "You can't become the general manager, unless I get hit by a bus. That's unlikely to happen. So you need to figure out your next steps. If someone's been here for a while you can't be greedy."

And team mom or not, Rogers has concise advice with a hint of maternal instinct for the next generation of folks working in sports.

"You want them to be there for a long time. Time to let them go, they paid their dues. They learned a lot, they're as far as they can go. Go spread your wings and find something else," she said. "And I think that's the part that I enjoy the most, that I was able to mentor or have some kind of positive impact on somebody."

It's unlikely that anyone would follow in Rogers' footsteps after her incredibly unique journey. But what is certain is that new career paths are being charted everyday. And the story of the next trail blazing woman in baseball will have precedent, even as the roads to get there continue to be unprecedented.

"I always say, if I could do this, anybody could do it." Rogers said. "It's really not that hard, it's just a commitment and you have to love what you're doing."

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Women in baseball wave lifts Jersey Shore BlueClaws in minor leagues