Young go-getter types consider Google a dream job. Katie Krall hopes it's the title of her memoirs: "Two Months at Google -- My Life in Baseball."
A few weeks ago, Krall hoped she could apply what she learned at the tech giant to a future in Major League Baseball. But then a call from Red Sox player development executive Chris Stasio accelerated her plans, and now she's helping make history as the second female coach in the organization.
Krall will serve as a baseball development coach at Double-A Portland, where she'll help communicate data between players, the front office, and player development staff. She joins minor league coach Bianca Smith in making the Red Sox the first organization with two female coaches.
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"The opportunity to be on the field, Chris Stasio I spoke with probably in early November and he mentioned that this was a position they wanted to have at all of their affiliates this season," Krall said. "And he spoke to me about the way the role would integrate data and really be in the trenches and on the field with the coaching staff, so it appealed to me for a number of reasons."
Krall is only 24, but she's no newcomer to the game. During her undergraduate years at Northwestern, she coordinated the 2016 World Series Trophy Tour of the Cubs before serving as an assistant general manager in the Cape Cod League. She graduated in 2018 and was selected from over 1,300 applicants for MLB's inaugural Diversity Fellowship Program, which is designed to help women and people of color land front office jobs.
She then served as an analyst with the Reds before joining Google's global strategy team this fall. As if all that's not enough, she's also completing her MBA at the University of Chicago.
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While she hoped one day to work in baseball, she didn't expect it to happen this quickly, and she certainly didn't anticipate an on-field role.
"I was even candid with Chris and I said, do you genuinely think that someone like me could be a candidate for this role? I said just give it to me straight," Krall said. "And he said, 'Yes, with the way that we want to really leverage the information we have in the front office and to bring it to the field, let's have you talk to some more folks and let's see if there's a fit on both sides.'
"So previously I had never considered being in uniform. Even though there are many women taking that route, I had never thought about it personally."
That explains why her tenure at Google lasted only two months, leading to the book title she joked about.
"I spent a whopping two months at Google on their global strategy team, a really cool opportunity, had a phenomenal boss, really high performing team," he said. "But I did miss baseball a great deal. And I think my intention always had been to leverage frameworks that I would learn at Google and big tech back to baseball someday.
"I saw it as more of a detour than a complete course alteration. I just didn't anticipate it would be so short, but I'm very glad to be here now."