SPORTS
Thursday, January 14, 2016 | B7
www.TheEpochTimes.com
JESSICA MENDOZA JOINS ‘SUNDAY NIGHT BASEBALL’ FULL-TIME
MAXX WOLFSON/GETTY IMAGES
By Rachel Cohen
J
essica Mendoza wonders
what she’d be doing during the upcoming Major
League Baseball season
if not for some events out of
her control.
The retired softball star was
scheduled to call two Monday
night MLB games late in 2015
for ESPN and hoped to get a regular gig this year, but figured she
might need to wait longer for a
slot to open up.
Instead, six days after her debut,
she leapt onto the network’s showcase platform of “Sunday Night
Baseball”—and hasn’t left since.
ESPN announced Wednesday
that the 35-year-old Mendoza is
now a permanent fixture in the
Sunday prime-time booth. She’ll
join another new analyst, Aaron
Boone, alongside returning playby-play voice Dan Shulman.
They replace Curt Schilling, who moves to Monday,
and John Kruk, who returns to
“Baseball Tonight.”
“It’s just crazy when I look back,
and literally less than six months
ago I had no idea what was going
to happen after the Monday night
games,” Mendoza says.
Just like that, she’s the most
prominent woman calling
national games for a major men’s
sport—one of the few in the
booth, not limited to sideline
reporter. It’s an ascension that
seems to have happened blindingly fast, and yet it was also a
slow and steady climb.
An Olympic gold medalist and
the sport’s premier hitter, Mendoza found herself needing a new
career when softball was dropped
from the Summer Games. The
Stanford alum joined ESPN
in 2007 and didn’t give much
thought to calling baseball until
the following year, when Kruk
took part in Women’s College
World Series coverage.
Mendoza saw how knowledge
of one sport could translate to the
other. Still, she acknowledged,
historically there was just “oneway traffic”—her father, a baseball coach, would guide her softball teams, but a woman typically
wouldn’t instruct baseball players.
She later did some sideline
reporting on men’s sports and studio work for “Baseball Tonight.”
In June, Mendoza became the first
female game analyst for a men’s
College World Series telecast.
Meeting with senior coordinating producer Phil Orlins in April,
she was eager to work games but
wary of seeming like a gimmick.
AP PHOTO/JACK DEMPSEY
Former Olympic softball
medalist Jessica Mendoza
will work games this
season alongside another
new analyst, Aaron Boone,
in place of Curt Schilling
and John Kruk.
Jessica Mendoza
of ESPN will now
be a fixture on
“Sunday Night
Baseball.”
She’ll join another
new analyst,
Aaron Boone,
alongside returning
play-by-play voice
Dan Shulman.
Mendoza remembered watching
in 2012 when former U.S. teammate Michele Smith appeared on
a nationally televised MLB game
on TBS and “feeling like she was
a guest.”
She dryly describes how she
didn’t want her male colleagues
to promote her presence in the
booth: “We have a female with
us today, yay.”
But Mendoza came away from
that meeting confident ESPN was
serious about her long-term prospects as an MLB game analyst.
Not that she ever imagined a spot
on “Sunday Night Baseball” could
come anytime soon. She laughs in
recalling that when she attended a
Sunday night game early last season to observe the crew, she felt
like a total groupie.
On Aug. 24, she called the
Monday night matchup between
the Cardinals and Diamond-
backs. The next morning, Schilling posted then quickly deleted
a tweet comparing Muslims to
Nazis. ESPN pulled him from
that Sunday’s game and replace
him with Mendoza.
She couldn’t eat, couldn’t
sleep—squeezed by the pressure
that her performance could sway
whether other women received
future opportunities to call men’s
sports.
“I knew even the smallest mistake, it felt like the world would
come after me,” Mendoza says.
As a player, she would visualize
how a huge game would go, but
“it’s hard to do that when you’ve
never done it.” On the field, she
would take confidence from her
preparation, but now there wasn’t
time.
“I could have totally sucked,”
she says.
Yet while this was her first “Sun-
day Night Baseball” assignment,
it was hardly her first live sporting event. As the pitchers started
throwing and the batters swinging, she realized it was no different
from the dozens of softball games
she worked each season.
“You could feel the change
in her comfort level inning by
inning even in the first game,”
Shulman says.
The Cubs’ Jake Arrieta made
history that night by no-hitting
the Dodgers. Mendoza made history after her debut earned rave
reviews, sticking on Sunday night
the rest of the season and becoming the first female analyst to call
a nationally televised MLB playoff game when she worked the AL
wild-card matchup.
John Wildhack, ESPN’s executive vice president for programming and production, doesn’t
want to speculate about what kind
of position Mendoza would’ve
held in 2016 if not for Schilling’s
tweet. She was undoubtedly a big
part of the network’s long-term
baseball plans before that, he
adds, preferring to focus on how
she managed the circumstances
that were in her control.
“She seized the moment,”
he says.
As Wildhack talked to others
in the industry about Mendoza’s
performance, he realized: “Wow,
this was not just good. This was
really, really, really good.”
Boone adds that what he heard
“from very smart people I respect
is she said some things on games
from an analysis standpoint that
made them take note.”
Still, there were occasions in
those first couple of broadcasts
that Mendoza hesitated before
making a point, fearful of the
repercussions of a misstep. The
moment would pass and she’d
never get in that observation.
That happened less and less by
the wild-card round. The additional games, along with her studio work during the playoffs, also
allowed her to introduce herself to
players and managers around the
batting cage and in the clubhouse.
She fondly remembers chatting with Royals star Eric Hosmer during the World Series, his
bat in her hand, just two great hitters talking shop. Mendoza hopes
that soon she’ll no longer need to
start each conversation explaining
who she is, why she’s there, and
how she understands the intricacies of their swings.
“It just felt so good for the guys
to see me as a peer and not just a
female,” she says.
And now with the benefit of a
whole offseason, Mendoza has
time for her beloved preparation.
She expects to put together an
Excel spreadsheet on each team.
Returning from the World
Series, Mendoza happened to
be on the same flight as “Monday Night Football” producer Jay
Rothman. He showed her video
clips that coach-turned-analyst
Jon Gruden compiles and narrates for his colleagues to highlight areas he’s focusing on.
Hoping to learn more, she shadowed the Monday night crew for
three days before the Nov. 9 game
between the Bears and Chargers
in San Diego. Mendoza attended
all the meetings, sat down with
play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico for three hours, and peppered
Gruden with questions about his
routine. She wanted to know
everything from the volume of
his notes to where his eyes go
during a play.
With her new role, Mendoza,
who lives in California and
has two young children, made
one particular request: She’ll
still call the Women’s College
World Series.
She and Boone will be the fifth
different analyst team in six seasons for “Sunday Night Baseball”
since Jon Miller and Joe Morgan
departed after 21 years in 2010—
partly because Bobby Valentine
and Terry Francona each left the
booth to return to managing.
The 42-year-old Boone, who
joined ESPN in 2010 after playing a dozen seasons in the majors,
moves up from the Monday night
games. “Sunday Night Baseball”
also gets a new producer in Andy
Reichwald, who also comes over
from Mondays, while Buster
Olney returns as the reporter.
“If this team establishes themselves as we hope and we think
they can,” Wildhack said, “it will
be terrific for us, terrific for ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ and terrific
for the sport.”
From The Associated Press
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FOR ONCE, PEYTON MANNING IS THE HEALTHIEST QB
By Arnie Stapleton
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—
Peyton Manning is preparing
for his first start in 64 days,
and for once he’s the healthiest
quarterback.
Manning won back his starting job two weeks ago, replacing Brock Osweiler and leading
Denver past San Diego.
Osweiler sprained his right
knee in that game. He spent
the portion of practice that
was open to the media Wednesday working on the side with
strength and conditioning
coach Luke Richesson.
Rookie QB Trevor Siemian
shared snaps with Manning.
Denver (12–4) hosts Pittsburgh (11–6) Sunday and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is dealing with a sprained
right shoulder. He was hurt on
a sack by Cincinnati’s Vontaze
Burfict last weekend.
The Broncos are close to full
strength, although Von Miller
was sent home sick before
Wednesday’s practice.
From The Associated Press
AP PHOTO/DAVID ZALUBOWSKI
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