The Bethesda Big Train, a local college baseball summer league team in the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League, will honor Montgomery County native and Orioles assistant general manager Eve Rosenbaum at their July 5 game with a bobblehead.
Rosenbaum, who grew up in Bethesda and graduated from Walt Whitman High School, is one of the few women to advance to a major front office position in Major League Baseball. Some others include Kim Ng, former general manager of the Miami Marlins, and Raquel Ferreira, current assistant GM for the Boston Red Sox.
Rosenbaum’s standing as a role model for women in sports was not lost on Bruce Adams, founder and president of the Big Train.
“I’ve got literally zillions of bobbleheads all over my house,” Adams told MCM. “About four of them are women.”
According to Adams, one of Rosenbaum’s first forays into baseball work came as a volunteer scoreboard operator with the team.
Adams also mentioned Rosenbaum’s deep roots in Bethesda, specifically in the baseball scene.
“She played boys’ baseball at Bethesda Chevy Chase Baseball… and then she was a Whitman softball player,” Adams said. “She’s just a really fun, cool example of the talent we have in Bethesda.”
Rosenbaum graduated from Harvard University where she also played softball. After her junior year, she interned with the Red Sox, where she worked with Ng.
While most know Rosenbaum for her work in baseball, her first job out of college was in football as part of the NFL’s junior rotational program, and then as manager of business intelligence and optimization.
After a few years, she transitioned to baseball, working in the Astros front office. From there, she made the jump to the team she had been a fan of since childhood in the Baltimore Orioles.
Friday’s game will start at 7 p.m. at Shirley Povich Field.
Big Train’s 7 p.m. game on Sunday will feature another bobblehead giveaway, this one honoring 12-year-old batboy Owen Lieber.
Even at his young age, Lieber is one of the many volunteers who help the Big Train program, one of the most popular in the Cal Ripken Sr. League, thrive.
“He’s beloved in the Big Train community,” Adams said. “I mean, he goes out to pick up the bat and the fans start cheering ‘Owen! Owen! Owen!’ I mean, he just seemed like the perfect person to honor on the 25th anniversary… of Big Train.”
