WALDORF, Maryland -- The first thing Courtney Knichel typically does when she arrives in her office on a Saturday afternoon is change into a pair of Converse sneakers. Saturdays with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs involve manual labor, even for the general manager.
But today, that's not the first thing Knichel does when she arrives for work at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, Maryland. Before she can lace up her chucks, marketing manager Austin Gore is waddling up to her. His head is poking out of a bulbous, furry, blue mascot suit; his huge, red clown shoes are awkwardly scuffing along the hallway; and in his giant, blue hands, he's carrying papers for her to look over.
He's dressed as "Pinch," the Blue Crabs mascot, for the team photo later in the afternoon -- but he also needs to make sure all the names are spelled correctly in the in-game videos. In between lacing up her shoes, Knichel corrects the spelling of "McCullough" to "McCawley."
Welcome to the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, an independent league baseball team in Waldorf, Maryland. While they're based about 30 miles from Nationals Park and 60 miles from the Baltimore Orioles' Camden Yards, they're a world away from both. In baseball's backwater, Knichel is breaking ground as the only woman general manager in the Atlantic League.
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Knichel, 29, started at the bottom of the Blue Crabs' organization. A native of Charles County, Maryland, Knichel became a marketing intern for the Blue Crabs in 2008, when the organization formed; she was fresh out of college when her mom signed her up for a summer internship. During a year-end sorority party, Knichel received a call from the then-nascent Blue Crabs, offering her an internship. She wrote the details down on a nearby napkin.
Unsure of what her job really entailed, Knichel showed up on her first day in heels to look professional. She spent the evening picking up trash in the stadium, because in 2008, for a fledgling independent baseball team, "marketing intern" really meant "grunt laborer."
Knichel was quickly introduced to a job with long hours, but it turned out to be much more than that. When the original marketing manager was fired in May of the first season, Knichel took over. She had been with the team for just a few months. It was mayhem.
"I had no idea what I was doing," Knichel said. "That whole first summer I taught myself everything."
For the next eight years, she steadily worked her way up the ladder for the Blue Crabs -- marketing assistant, then marketing manager for four years, then assistant GM for three after that. When Patrick Day, the previous GM, left to take over the New Britain (Connecticut) Bees in December 2015, Knichel was the natural successor.
"It's not like it was, '[Courtney] hasn't been around the game, but let's give her a shot,'" manager Jeremy Owens said. "She's been here. She's seen."
The Blue Crabs released a short statement about the management change in March, but there was little fanfare.
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It's four hours from game time, and the issue is tables.
The Blue Crabs sell tables along the stadium's concourse for local vendors during games. But folding tables, as it turns out, are worth their weight in gold: the players need them for the clubhouse, concessions needs them to set up, the front office needs them in the main office.
But right now, the game-day staff needs 25-odd tables for the vendors, and corporate sales manager Jason Sproesser protests, saying they don't have enough. Knichel tells him simply: "Figure it out."
At first glance, Knichel appears part-stereotype: Her hair is perfectly curled and she wears a large, monogramed necklace. Her office is not only decorated with nine years' worth of Blue Crabs momentos, but also with a pink base from a breast cancer awareness event and a mug scrawled with "World's best lady boss" in pink script. On the wall behind her desk, there's a framed picture of the Blue Crabs' opening pitch.
If that clashes with the summer boys' culture of baseball, Knichel does not care -- she has a vision for what she wants, and she's quick to respond if she sees something out of place.
Earlier this year, Knichel was visiting the locker room after a game to talk to Owens. As she usually does, she called out before entering to make sure all the players were at least decently dressed. As Knichel walked in, a first-year player made a crack, miming her peering through her fingers to see the supposedly naked studs in the locker room. Knichel stopped.
"I was like, 'Dude, I've worked here nine years,'" she said. "'If I wanted to look at d--ks, I'd have looked at d--ks, you know?'"
The locker room fell silent, and the player was so subdued he later worried if he was going to get released. Knichel went on with her meeting.
"People say stupid stuff," said Brian Bures, a three-year veteran among the pitching staff. "She's handled it as well as she can, I think. You're going to get a reaction, because that's just how it is."
Baseball as a whole -- and most especially the major leagues -- has long had a diversity problem. The all-women's league of the WWII era is long gone, and with the advent of softball, it's rare that a woman makes her way onto a professional baseball team.
The path to broadening executive and front-office positions beyond men has been tortuously slow. Some major league teams employ women at senior levels, particularly in marketing. But there are only a few women in player personnel or baseball operation roles. Linda Smith of the Kansas City Royals is one of a handful of women with direct input into player personnel decisions at the major league level.
Kim Ng made waves after getting hired as an assistant GM by the Yankees and Dodgers, and she has been mentioned in several GM openings. She has been rumored to be the best candidate for the first female MLB GM.
Minor league teams have seen a number of women as general managers -- though they typically don't make player personnel decisions; those are handled by the team's parent organization. A few hours down the road from Knichel and the Blue Crabs, Blair Hoke is GM of the Pulaski Yankees, a Rookie League team.
With the Blue Crabs, Knichel decides who gets signed, who gets promoted and who gets released. She's in charge of the bottom line, and that means when a player has to be acquired or released, she's in on the deal.
On this day, Knichel is finalizing the release of high-profile player Fred Lewis, a one-time MLB journeyman. Lewis has been injured most of the season. The Blue Crabs say he's cleared to play. Lewis says he still can't go and is still in pain. He hasn't shown up in a while and didn't show up for the team picture.
"That's it," Knichel said after Lewis was a no-show for the team picture, though she'd already made the decision to release him. Lewis' official release came through the wire after Saturday's game.
With that decision and countless other personnel moves, Knichel has already (quietly) broken barriers. She may break more.
On the weekly teleconference with other league GMs, Atlantic League president Rick White called everyone "guys" or "fellas." Knichel is the only person on the call who's not a man.
Halfway through this season, White emailed Knichel to apologize -- he'd totally forgotten there was a woman on the call.
"I told him I don't mind," Knichel said. "I know I'm playing ball with the boys."
Knichel is also dead-set to have things her way, and she's single-minded in her standards. If there needs to be 25 tables on the concourse, there are going to be 25 tables on the concourse. If the sales team needs to make 50 calls a day, Knichel says she doesn't expect to hear why it's not getting done.
"Courtney is really strong-willed," said accounting manager Samantha Slovik. "She's on a path, and she knows what she's set out to do."
Knichel is one of a few women in senior management at the Blue Crabs' front office -- Slovik is in her third year as accounting coordinator, and Alexandra Wohlenhaus is the box office coordinator. Both describe Knichel as approachable but unmistakably headstrong.
Wohlenhaus, Slovik and Knichel make the Blue Crabs something unusual: a baseball front office with women in all of the senior management positions. All three started as interns with the Blue Crabs, and each has been promoted within the system. Knichel says it wasn't some grand scheme or vision -- just a result of the most driven and organized rising in responsibility.
"I didn't bring those girls in because girls are better," Knichel said. "But are these girls better? Kind of, yeah."
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Knichel may be on baseball's outer rim, but there are still occasional brushes with the big time.
Earlier in 2016, the Blue Crabs were involved in a swirl of rumors around minor league moves. The Batavia Muckdogs, operating at a significant loss and struggling with flagging attendance, were for sale.
A group of local investors wanted to bring the Batavia Muckdogs to Waldorf as a Nationals affiliate -- but the deal fell through because of a lack of agreement between the Nationals and the Orioles, both of whom had to approve the deal because Waldorf is in the territory of both organizations.
What would have happened -- or what still might happen -- is totally up in the air to Knichel. She said she has no idea whether a minor league organization would incorporate some of the Blue Crabs front office or bring in their own people.
But Knichel and White both said they were confident that the Blue Crabs would remain in Southern Maryland through the 2017 season and likely through the 2018 season.
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During the afternoons leading up to game days, Knichel takes a lap around the stadium. She circles every inch of the place, putting up placards that have fallen down, straightening umbrellas, pulling down signs still up from yesterday's game.
"I like to do it every day, to make sure everything is good," Knichel said.
In her first days and weeks as GM, Knichel struggled with micromanaging. Everything had to be perfect -- and nobody could do it better than she could.
"I've learned to relinquish duties," Knichel said. "And if something goes wrong, that's okay."
Micromanagement is an understandable issue for Knichel, who has worked her way up the ladder in Waldorf. After nine years, this is home -- even at the fringes of a sport that is still struggling with the concept that women are just as qualified to run the show as men.
She happily shows off the features she's most proud of: the kiddie wading pool just off the outfield that she had re-filled this year for the price of one outfield sign, the picnic tables along the concourse she had installed, the staff members spaced out along the concourse acting as de facto ushers and concierge.
Knichel remembers putting seats together minutes before the gates opened for the first-ever Blue Crabs game.
Now, Regency Furniture Stadium, which shares a parking lot with a metro bus stop and whose concrete is chipped and siding is starting to peel, is the place she doesn't want to leave.
"She knows this ballpark better than everyone," Wohlenhaus said.
"This," Knichel said, "is a place that's very special to me."
On this particular Saturday, Knichel is standing along the third-base concourse. People started lining up outside the gates well before they opened, and there's not a rain cloud in sight. Today will be a good day.
The Blue Crabs averaged about 3,500 in attendance in 2014 and 2015, good for the top 10 of independent league baseball. On a good Saturday like today, the park might bring in 5,000 or more.
The chucks get some good use: just before the gates open, it turns out the Blue Crabs are, as usual, one table short. So Knichel hustles down to the clubhouse and helps haul the final table into position. When another vendor requests some chairs, she ducks into a concourse closet and finds a few for them.
She's not joking when she says she knows everybody -- dozens of people come up to her to say hello and to chat with her for a few minutes during the game. There's the owner of the local Chick-Fil-A, a big sponsor; there's the guy who runs a local haunted house; and Knichel's mom scolding her for missing church two Sundays in a row.
Tonight is a good night, though. The stadium is full, and Knichel is able to present a local charity with a check for more than $5,000. What's more, the Blue Crabs win 5-3. After the game, there are fireworks and a party on the field. But it's already 10 p.m. and most of the young families head home.
Knichel is still on the field, and good thing she wore her chucks. Some of the fireworks from the postgame show blew onto the field, and somebody has to pick them up.