Amanda Hopkins is the first full-time female baseball scout in more than 50 years.

Hopkins, 24, is about to complete her second year as an area scout for the Seattle Mariners. Hopkins is responsible for the Four Corners area of the Southwest.

“I think if anything people are more shocked sometimes when I will go meet with a player in the office or something like that. Maybe they just know, hey the Mariners’ scout is coming in to meet with you today and they walk in and they’re like, ‘Oh.’ That kind of thing,” Hopkins said. “It’s usually more of like a shocked look. But then they’re more curious, they’re like, ‘How’d you get into this?’ And they kind of like want a brief rundown of how I got to where I am. All the players, all the coaches, are incredibly respectful to me.”

 

Hopkins majored in psychology while playing softball at Central Washington.

“The whole time I was in there I wanted to be a baseball scout,” Hopkins said. “And I remember probably my freshman year, sophomore year, I was like I really don’t want to do anything but that. So why am I trying to almost talk myself out of it and find a different path?”

“She put a sign up on her bedroom door saying, ‘Stay out, we’re opponents,’” recalled her father, Ron Hopkins, a special assistant to the general manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates. “In other words, my bedroom is off limits to you, there is info in here. I got a kick out of it.”