Alyssa Nakken loves chicken wings and she’s mic’d up

Apr 1, 2023 - 3:15 AM

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In an incredible bit of timing, Major League Baseball and the San Francisco Giants waited until the very last day of Women’s History Month to spotlight women coaches in baseball.

First, the league, with this tweet this morning:

And then the Giants, with a Mic’d Up release featuring Alyssa Nakken on their YouTube channel:

Of course, we didn’t do a lot of spotlighting of her during this month, either, but the timing of both releases stood out! A Friday! The last day of the month! Oh well.

I did give Nakken the award for Best Braid in the Spring Training photo day post earlier in the week and that didn’t do anything to shed light on everything she does do to help the team succeed when this video very much does! Some highlights:

• Loves chicken wings
• Describes herself as being socially awkward
• Sergio Romo suspects the Giants’ medical staff will find “nothing but beans and tortillas” in his blood work
• She considers Logan Webb kin because they’re “just a couple of Sacramento kids”
• Is sometimes called “Nak Attack”
• “I’ve always loved groundballs. There’s always something, like, meditative about it.”
• She and Kap have come up with a playlist called “Spring Training Vibrations” and some of the songs might be inappropriate for general audiences!
• Fernando Pereze, Director of Video Coaching, is a big personality and at least he and she are well aware of the Paul Rudd “Look at us” meme — maybe the whole team knows it, too, I don’t know! I can only say what’s on this video!
• Ron Wotus is aware of her hair maintenance schedule
• She’s great friends with Rachel Golden, a minor league hitting coach for the Cubs
• We get a sense of the Giants’ coaching structure: this probably is obvious, but I guess I’d never really thought about it. There are likely tiers of concern. At least, this is what I gather. For the main guys — 40 man, let’s say — Kapler and Correa deal with the players directly, and then, at least after that, the players after that are handled directly by the other coaches. This makes sense but you get to see a bit of this in action in this video.
• Okay, the full team does this joke, too — my heart has grown two sizes to see that 20-year old comedies still capture the minds of Kids Today.

She seems very friendly and, mainly, chill. I can imagine Kapler and Correa being at all times some degree of intense and just knowing that there are professionals in the clubhouse who still have a certain way about them — Antoan Richardson included here — definitely contributes to the Giants’ stated goal of filling the team with a diversity of viewpoints and communication styles.

And Nakken reminds me of people I know, particularly in the Sacramento area. She’s easy to root for as a person and it’s great to see her getting a spotlight. The video’s 15:41, so this is an easy watch.