Opening Day is sacred for those who worship at the altar of baseball, and Eve Rosenbaum has been a true believer her entire life. As a girl growing up in Bethesda, her parents would take her out of school every year to see her beloved Baltimore Orioles begin the long season.
“I remember my first-grade teacher [at Carderock Springs] was a big baseball fan,” Rosenbaum says. “When my parents came in to pick me up the principal buzzes down over the intercom and was like, ‘Eve’s parents are here to pick her up.’ And [my teacher] was like, ‘Can I come?’ ”
Today, Rosenbaum, 34, is assistant general manager for those same Orioles, and she’s played a key role in their revival. The team she joined in 2019 as director of baseball operations is coming off a monumental season in which it won its first American League East Division title in nine years. It’s been a remarkable rise for the O’s, who were among the worst teams in baseball for the previous half decade, and Rosenbaum, who in 2022 was promoted to her current position, making her one of Major League Baseball’s highest-ranking female executives.
Thirty-seven days before the team’s March 28 opener, Rosenbaum is sitting in her office at the O’s spring training facility in Sarasota, Florida, speaking to a reporter on Zoom. There’s an air not just of optimism, which is ubiquitous in the baseball world this time of year, but of confidence in her voice.
“For the last few years, when we’d come into camp it was kind of like, ‘Who’s going to be on the team this year?’ ” she says. “We would have no idea. And now we have this young core that’s been together for a long time, and we have veterans. The team is well respected and established across the league. So I feel like it’s this more natural progression of, ‘Here we go.’ ”
Rosenbaum has been charging ahead her entire life. She grew up in a family that loved baseball and started her career playing with and against boys in BCC Baseball, a local league. At Walt Whitman High School she switched to softball and excelled as a catcher—and a student. She was president of the Student Government Association and had the resume and chops to be admitted to Harvard after graduation in 2008.
In Cambridge she walked on to the softball team and played for four years, helping the Crimson capture two Ivy League titles. Winning seems to follow Rosenbaum. Two years after joining the Houston Astros, she was the team’s international scouting manager when they won the World Series. When she followed current Orioles general manager Mike Elias from Houston to Baltimore in 2019, the Orioles were in the midst of a slow and painful rebuilding process. Her work has contributed to a stunning turnaround. The team has MLB’s No. 1 ranked minor league system according to Baseball America, and last year tied for the fourth most wins in a single season in franchise history.
“She is one of the bright young baseball minds in the league today,” Elias told MASN.com when he promoted Rosenbaum. “She has experience across basically every department…she knows the draft, she knows player development very well, she knows analytics very well and kind of the intersection of all those areas.”
Although she lives in Baltimore now, she often comes back to Bethesda, where her parents and many friends still live. Who knows where her next home will be? If her career trajectory continues on its current path, she could become baseball’s second-ever female general manager. But for now, her focus is on helping the Orioles win their first World Series in more than 40 years.
“We won 101 games last year, but we were knocked out of the playoffs,” she says. “It’s not satisfying enough. The job’s not done.”
Bethesda Magazine spoke with Rosenbaum via Zoom in February. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
I know it’s hard to separate being a fan from your job, but how fun was last year?
The style of baseball that we played last year was genuinely exciting. I was on the edge of my seat so often because we had so many great late-inning comebacks, or it came down to the last pitch with [closer] Félix [Bautista] on the mound. It can be a little bit stress-inducing if you work for the team, but it was a very fun style of baseball. There was not a boring moment.
When did your love affair with baseball start?
It started before I can even remember. My parents tell me that I knew how to throw a ball before I knew how to walk. So really, it’s been my entire life.
What, if anything, do you remember about playing baseball as a kid in BCC Baseball?
I still have some of my jerseys, because for a long time we were the Orioles. So everyone used to fight over being No. 8 [Cal Ripken Jr.’s number]. I still have my No. 8 jersey. It’s tattered and the letters are falling off, but I still have it. I just loved playing. I was a catcher when I played at Harvard, and that goes back to when I was in BCC. I think it was third grade when they switched to kid pitch, and I remember the very first game our coach was assigning us positions. I was randomly assigned to be catcher for the first game. My dad was a catcher, so he was like, ‘All right, this is it. We’re a catcher now.’ I was randomly assigned to be a catcher, and then I was a catcher at Harvard, so there’s all these ways that BCC influenced the rest of my life.
Were the Orioles always your favorite team?
They were, yeah. We had season tickets to the Orioles, so we would drive up from Bethesda to Baltimore all the time. I mean, we must have gone to 60 games a year when I was growing up.
Who was your favorite player?
Definitely Cal. Cal was everyone’s favorite player growing up. I went to Cal Ripken Sr.’s baseball camp, and I went to a camp that Junior did as well. I was at the game when he broke the streak [for most consecutive games played in baseball history].
What were some of the highlights of your softball career at Whitman?
High school was like the peak of my career because that’s when I was good compared to everyone else. When you get to college, it’s a different story. When I got to Whitman, I had stopped growing and all of the boys were growing, so my choices were to go out for the boys’ baseball team and probably play JV or to play varsity softball, where I’d be the starting catcher. So I switched to softball. I just immediately loved it. I loved my teammates, I loved the fast pace of the game, I loved being able to call my own pitches. I remember how good some of the other teams in Montgomery County were. Poolesville and Damascus were really good. I thought I was good and then we’d go play Damascus and they would kick our butts. It was really eye-opening.
What about during your four years playing catcher at Harvard?
We won the Ivy League championship in my junior and senior years. I think any athlete can tell you winning a game is hard. Winning a championship is harder. Winning back-to-back championships is super hard—even though the [NFL’s Kansas City] Chiefs make it look easy. That was an incredible accomplishment. My senior year, we went to the NCAA Tournament, and we beat the University of Maryland. Being an Ivy League team and winning games in the tournament, it’s the same as in basketball.
Did you always have your eye on a career in professional sports?
I think both yes and no. Honestly, I think it was maybe a teacher at Whitman who came up to me and said something like, ‘You’d be really good working in sports’ because I was such a sports fanatic. A lot of people who work in sports now did love sports growing up. But beyond just being a fan, I always got to see how the games impacted the communities off the field and how it would bring people together. I mean, people don’t agree on anything these days, but a whole city or whole state can root for a team and live and die on the roster moves and the outcomes of games. Going to school in Boston, it’s in a state that’s really in love with its sports teams. So in college I said, ‘OK, I want to try my hand at the strategy side of this, at the business side of this.’
How’d you break into the business?
After my sophomore year in college, I got an internship with the Red Sox. I worked in Fenway Affairs, which dealt with local government and local business affairs around Fenway Park. Then the next summer, I got an internship with Major League Baseball in their baseball operations department. Then I got a job with the NFL.
What did you do for the NFL?
I did a program called the Junior Rotational Program, which is like their executive training program. It’s right after you graduate from college. It was four six-month stints in different departments around the Commissioner’s Office, which for me was great because I knew I wanted to be in sports, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I got to see how the most successful league in the country ran their business. Out of that I was hired to be a manager of business intelligence and optimization for NFL Media.
Why did you make the switch to baseball?
Baseball has always been my favorite sport. I was happy doing what I was doing. I was in my early 20s, I was living in New York City, but I went back and forth between L.A. and New York. And then one of the guys who I interned for at Major League Baseball came to me one day and said, ‘Hey, Eve, I remember you from your internship. I remember that you were a really good worker and that you loved baseball. I’m the international scouting director for the Houston Astros right now, and I need some help. Do you want to come work for me?’ I figured this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break into baseball operations and scouting. So I did it.
You met Orioles general manager Mike Elias in Houston. What first struck you about him?
This is funny. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this to anyone. The first thought I’ll always think about for Mike was his office was right behind where my first desk was. He was the amateur
scouting director, so he was always on the road. He was never there. So everyone used his office as a phone booth. If he was there everyone would be like, ‘Oh, what do we do now?’
He was always working. He was just enmeshed in the amateur scouting world. The guy’s a super hard worker and super knowledgeable.
You were in Houston when they won the World Series in 2017. How do you think about that title looking back on it now knowing the sign stealing scandal that surrounded it?
I don’t know. There’s not a great answer to that. What I like to focus on is that the team then followed it up with another World Series [title] in 2022 with a lot of the same players. And the team’s been really good ever since. I’ve heard all sorts of opinions about it, and they’re all valid things for people to feel and say. Regardless of that, I take a lot of pride in the Astros the last few years because a lot of the young international players who I helped sign when I was there have been key parts of that team. So that’s what I like to focus on…the players who I saw go from being 15 years old to be a 2022 world champion.
What does your role as assistant general manager with the Orioles entail?
My main job is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Major League team. A lot of that is roster management and the daily transactions of optioning guys between AAA and the majors. Discussing with the medical staff if someone needs to go on the Injured List or a rehab assignment. Working with our pitching coaches to map out which relievers are available for that night and what our starting rotation is going to be for the next week or two.
Then there’s the bigger picture items for the Major League roster, like free agent signings and trades, which we spent all off-season working on. Waiver claims, smaller cash considerations trades. There’s a lot of player evaluation that I do on a day-to-day basis and then getting together with our little strategy team here in baseball ops and discussing what moves we want to make.
I touch all facets of the baseball operations department: player development, minor league operations, strength and conditioning, performance, analytics.
Is there one specific attribute you’re looking for in a player, a skill that a player has that makes them a quintessential Oriole?
I don’t know if I can [distill] this down into one particular trait, but we look at players who we think are going to fit our particular roster. We put a big focus on that. Based on this player’s skill set, how is he going to fit in with the other 39 guys we have on the 40-man roster right now? We spend a lot of time focusing on our particular situation in the American League East, which is grueling. We have a really good, young, exciting core that’s going to be here for a while, so we spend a lot of time focusing on players who skill-wise will fit in with that group. And then also making sure that the player’s going to come in and be an asset in our clubhouse as well.
You’re one of the highest-ranking female executives in baseball. I’m sure people ask you about that all the time. Does that impact your job or life in any way or is it just something you have to talk about in interviews?
The answer is both yes and no. It’s not like I wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh my God, I’m a woman in baseball.’ I mean, it’s true, but it’s not what I’m thinking about; what I’m thinking about is the same thing that everyone else in the building is thinking about, which is how do we improve the Orioles and how do we win on the field? How do we win today? How do we win tomorrow? How do we win next year? How do we win two years from now? That is the goal in baseball. That’s what I’m singularly focused on all the time.
I’ve always thought that if I do my job well, go above and beyond what’s asked of me, anticipate what my boss and his boss are going to need, the rest will kind of take care of itself. I’m not so naive to think that being a woman in baseball is exactly the same as being a man. I know there’s not a lot of people who look like me in baseball. For some people it might be unusual to see someone like me at a workout. I’m 5’4”. A lot of people in baseball are a foot taller than me. They might not even see me. They might just walk right past, but that’s OK. You just keep plugging away and eventually people get used to it. So it’s something that I’m aware of, but it’s not something that I think about every day because I’m just focused on the team.
You were inducted into the Greater Washington Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2021. I’m sure there are a lot of ways you could have responded when you got that call, ranging from, ‘What’s that?’ to ‘I grew up dreaming of this.’ How did you react?
When they called me to tell me that I was nominated they prefaced it by saying, ‘Not a lot of people get in the first year that they’re nominated, so you might not get in this year.’ So I didn’t think anything of it. Then they called back a few months later and told me that I was in. It was like the best day of my parents’ life.
I knew about the JCC [Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville]. We were not members growing up, but they had a pool and a gym and indoor basketball court. It was a cool place to go with friends who were members. I did not realize that they had a sports hall of fame. When I learned about it I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the most incredible thing.’ Because the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame that they have there is all about raising money for the summer camp program that they do at the JCC. And the summer camp program is something that everyone in Bethesda and Rockville knows about. It’s a normal day camp for kids, except that they also accept all sorts of kids with physical and mental disabilities. And the money that comes in through the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame helps ensure that those families with the kids who have special needs don’t pay a cent more in order to go to that camp. And that is really the meaning behind the Hall of Fame. I don’t know how many Hall of Fames can say that they serve such a great cause.
Do you get back to Bethesda a lot?
When I go to downtown Bethesda now it’s totally different. When I was growing up, we used to go hang out at the Barnes & Noble. It was the place to be. Now it’s Anthropologie. I still love going back to [Westfield] Montgomery mall. That has changed as well, but Montgomery mall has always had a really good food court. There’s a little place called The Market on the Boulevard [in Cabin John]. Anytime I go to Bethesda, I usually stop there on my way home and pick up dinner. Bethesda is just a great, great, great place to grow up.
Mike Unger is a writer and editor who grew up in Montgomery County and lives in Baltimore.
This story appears in the May/June edition of Bethesda Magazine.