Jan 29, 2015

No Dodging the Attention

Despite working a spring training camp that is home to the reigning National League Cy Young winner and the MVP runner-up, Sue Falsone is leading the Los Angeles Dodgers in media requests. Recently promoted to become the team’s Head Athletic Trainer, Falsone became the first female to hold that position in any of the four major professional sports. While proud of her ceiling-busting status, Falsone would prefer if the media concentrated on the job at hand.
Since being named to the post in October, Falsone has received interview requests from many news outlets, including CNN.

“I really thought this would be my 15 minutes of fame and it’d be over,” she told MLB.com. I had no concept of the story it would become. I’m usually in the background and the athletes are the story.

“People ask, ‘How does it work, you being a girl? Do you see them naked?'” Falsone said. “Does that bother me? A little. Men have women doctors and women have men doctors. It shouldn’t be unusual. It’s sports medicine. I don’t hang out in the clubhouse. They don’t get naked in the training room. It’s just mutual respect. Really, it’s a non-issue.”

T&C profiled Falsone’s climb to her current postion in an earlier blog.

We also talked to her for our 2005 feature, “Pitching In Stitches,” which detailed Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s rehab from a ruptured ankle tendon.