Women Staffers Continue to Break Barriers in Sports

The RiverDogs come into this six-game homestand with a 26-13 record. They have found success on the field once again after winning the Low-A East Championship just a year ago.

Part of the success of the team can be attributed to two women that are on the staff this year: Mia Salvemini and Mackenzie Corrigan.

Mia Salvemini is the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the RiverDogs. She is in charge of handling the position players and pitchers with running, lifting, mobility, and recovery among other responsibilities.

Growing up in Connecticut, Salvemini was an only child. She lived two blocks from the beach. It was a great place to grow up, but it was far away to get everywhere. She always enjoyed playing sports but was not as successful.

“I pretty much tried everything,” said Salvemini. “I sucked at most things, but I started doing CrossFit when I was 14.”

Salvemini knew that she wanted to do something with exercise as a career choice. When she was a sophomore in college at the University of Tampa, she did an internship at Cressey Sports Performance, where she was introduced to the baseball world.

After the internship, she worked with the University of Tampa’s baseball team in their strength and conditioning department along with other opportunities that led to her finding an opportunity within the Rays organization.

Salvemini was hired by the Rays in 2020 but was let go due to Covid. She was hired back in 202, and is in her second season this organization, spending last season with the FCL Rays, before coming to Charleston for the final six weeks of the season, which was during the championship run.

Mackenzie Corrigan is does performance science for the team. Her job is to handle a lot of the technology as well as screening for the players and managing their workload to make sure that they are staying where they need to be physically. She is in her first year with the team, starting in Spring Training of this year.

Growing up in the Cape area in Plymouth Massachusetts, Corrigan describes her hometown as very sports heavy. Her school was an athletic powerhouse. “It was weird not to go into sports,” she said.

Though she grew up in a sport's heavy town, baseball was not really a sport that her family followed that often. She says that hockey was big in her family, and she played soccer.

Corrigan got her start in athletic training during college. After college, she started working at a high school in Plymouth as its sole Athletic Trainer as well as in the Cape Cod Summer Baseball League for a few seasons, which is how she made the jump to Charleston.

“I was looking to do something different,” said Corrigan. “At that point, there were about five people that I worked with in the Cape that were hired by the Rays.”

Coming to the Rays was a big jump for Corrigan, considering it would force her to quit her job at 26 and move 1,000 miles away from home. Luckily for her and the RiverDogs, she had a support system at home that led her to Charleston.

“Both of my parents are very supportive,” said Corrigan. They have always supported my brother and me and told us to do whatever makes us happy.”

As an only child growing up, Salvemini’s biggest support system was her mom. “She has been very supportive of everything I have done. Growing up in a single parent household, it has always just been me and her, so it’s nice that I have that support from her, and she has been able to play both parenting roles for me growing up, so we have a very close relationship.

Though they both have excellent support systems and enjoy working in the Rays organization, there are still challenges that each of them faces as women working in sports. In a male dominant sport and industry, there are quite a few problems that these two faces. One of the main problems is finding privacy around the places that they go to.

“A lot of places where we go, women have minimal space where we can go without seeing people changing,” said Salvemini. “It’s 2022. Women are in sports.”

Through the challenges, both Salvemini and Corrigan want to continue to work within the Rays organization. Much like the players, both hope to one day, work their way up to the big leagues.

“Last year, when I was here for the last 6 weeks, it was a very exciting time, said Salvemini. “I was like, ‘wow! This is a very cohesive team,’ so to be a part of a team that is so successful and has each other’s backs is really cool. Going forward, I want to stay a Ray as long as I can.”

“When you have a solid team, it makes it more enjoyable,” said Corrigan. “Talking to other friends from past jobs and talking to them about the organizations that they work for, I want to stay in the Rays organization. It’s definitely the place to work in professional baseball.”