Tuesday is Opening Day in the Pioneer League, a West Coast independent baseball league. For one of its new teams, the person helping run the show is someone San Francisco Giants fans will recognize.

Amy Gutierrez spent more than 20 years around the Giants, the majority of them as the television sideline reporter covering the team. But after a baseball career best known for her work behind the microphone, Gutierrez has moved into the action as a co-general manager for the RedPocket Mobiles, a new team named after a budget cellphone service provider.

The Pioneer League is the same league where former Giant J.T. Snow will manage a team in Modesto and where the Oakland Ballers play. But unlike those teams, the Mobiles will play exclusively on the road for the entire 2026 summer, about as close as you get to baseball’s old barnstorming days in the modern era. (It also makes their cellphone-inspired name quite fitting.)

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“I think, hands down, this is the most unique situation in baseball I’ve ever encountered,” Gutierrez told SFGATE in a phone interview last week. “Like, I kind of can’t believe these guys are willing to do this. Ninety-six games on the road from California to Montana, and they are going to be together, and they’re going to be on a bus, and I think it’s going to have all kinds of fun story lines and some drama.”

FILE: San Francisco Giants center fielder Angel Pagan, right, talks with Giants broadcast reporter Amy Gutierrez during batting practice before a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers in San Francisco.

Gutierrez has been working as co-GM alongside Pioneer League director of baseball operations Al Maulding since she was hired in late February. She’s gotten a true crash course in everything that comes with the GM role — from scouting trips to spring training in Arizona to the highs and lows of roster moves. 

But unlike a GM for a big league team, a minor league general manager has far more off-field tasks to manage. When she spoke to SFGATE last week, Gutierrez was driving up to Marysville, about 20 miles east of Sutter Buttes, for an exhibition game but said she needed to stop at a Save Mart to pick up the food for the team to eat. She’s had to learn all of the paperwork the league requires for hiring people, making trades, coordinating travel. Her phone has been constantly buzzing in recent weeks leading up to Opening Day.

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“I could jump from this to being like a firefighter and putting out fires,” Gutierrez quipped. “That’s, I mean, I’m literally gaining training for multiple gigs outside of baseball, because the skill set that you get,........

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