Kim Ng

Kim Ng is the first Commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, appointed April 16, 2025. Before the AUSL she spent more than three decades in Major League Baseball, breaking multiple barriers along the way. When the Miami Marlins hired her as General Manager in November 2020 she became the first woman in history to serve as GM of a team in any of the four major North American men's professional sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL). She is also the first person of full East Asian descent to serve as GM of an MLB team.

Her personal tie to Oregon is one of those quiet connections that tend not to make the press release. Her husband, Tony Markward, is co-owner of Silas Wines in Amity, Oregon, a biodynamic Willamette Valley winery about 40 minutes from downtown Portland. Whether that influenced Portland's 2026 host-city selection is not publicly documented, but it is part of the backdrop.

Kim Ng's first MLB job was a 1990 internship with the Chicago White Sox. Eight years later the New York Yankees hired her as assistant general manager — at age 29, the youngest person in the major leagues in that role at the time. The Yankees won the World Series in 1998, 1999, and 2000 during her tenure.

In 2001 Ng joined the Los Angeles Dodgers as vice president and assistant general manager. She stayed in Los Angeles for a decade before MLB hired her as senior vice president of baseball operations, reporting to the commissioner's office. From 2011 to 2020 she worked on international operations, labor relations, on-field rules, and league-wide baseball administration.

In November 2020 the Miami Marlins hired her as General Manager. The announcement made national news on multiple fronts: first woman GM in the Big Four, first person of full East Asian descent to run an MLB baseball-operations department. Beyond the headlines, she inherited a Marlins franchise that had just surprised itself with a playoff run in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

Her Miami tenure produced the franchise's fourth playoff appearance on September 30, 2023, making her the first woman General Manager in MLB history to lead a team to the postseason. The Marlins were eliminated in the Wild Card round. After the 2023 season, with ownership planning to hire a president of baseball operations above her position, Ng declined a contract option and left the organization.

Ng joined the AUSL as a senior advisor in July 2024, shortly after the league's founding under the Athletes Unlimited umbrella. On April 16, 2025 she was named the league's first Commissioner. The timing was strategic: the AUSL's inaugural 2025 touring season was about to begin (June 2025), and the league was already planning its transition to a city-based model for 2026.

In interviews after her appointment, Ng has framed the AUSL commissioner role as a return to roots as much as a new chapter. She played softball at the University of Chicago. She watched the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) league exist and eventually go dormant. She knows how hard it is to build women's pro sports infrastructure from scratch. She also knows what institutional backing looks like — and the AUSL, with Major League Baseball's May 2025 strategic investment, has institutional backing no previous women's pro softball league had.

This part tends to surprise Portland fans. Kim Ng's husband is Tony Markward, co-owner (with Alex Clark) of Silas Wines, a biodynamic winery in Amity, Oregon, about 40 minutes southwest of Portland in the Willamette Valley. The winery operates a tasting room and wine bar called The Bramble in downtown Amity, housed in a restored 1904 Masonic building.

Silas Wines produces Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, and other Willamette Valley varietals alongside what the winery describes as "unique Malbec blends." Alex and Tony make the wine by hand every year. Bottles release without a formal schedule.

Whether the Markward family's Oregon base influenced the AUSL's choice of Portland as a 2026 expansion city is not publicly documented. The case for Portland rests on independently verifiable factors — Thorns attendance records, the Fire's 15,000 pre-sold season memberships, two decades of the Little League Softball World Series, a proven women's sports market. But personal familiarity matters in league-to-city relationships, and the Commissioner of the AUSL knowing the Willamette Valley well is not nothing.

Three things.

Institutional credibility. National Pro Fastpitch (NPF, 2004-2021) never attracted a hire of Ng's profile. The AUSL now has one. That changes how sponsors, broadcasters, and players evaluate the league's longevity. For Cascade ticket buyers deciding whether to invest in season memberships, the Commissioner's resume is a stability signal.

MLB leverage. Ng spent a decade in MLB's central office and three years running a major-league team. She knows how MLB operates, who to call, how broadcast deals are structured, and how to manage a relationship with Commissioner Manfred's office. MLB's May 2025 strategic investment in the AUSL happened with Ng at the table.

Proof of barriers broken. The Cascade roster has 12 women who are spending their twenties, thirties, and in some cases forties playing pro softball because the league exists. Every one of them can look at the Commissioner's office and see someone who made history getting to hers. That matters on a franchise whose players will pitch the sport to the next generation.