It’s been a year since Jessica Mendoza became first female ESPN MLB game analyst during the August 24, 2015 edition of Monday Night Baseball. On the eve of the Olympic softball star’s one-year anniversary with ESPN, she spoke to For The Win about the past year, being a pioneer and if the Cubs are really going to break that curse.
The interview has been condensed for space and lightly edited for clarity.
So it’s been a full year since you called your first MLB game on ESPN. Looking back, what’s been your favorite moment?
To be honest, it feels like it’s not real because of the way it all happened. For me, it’s not even been one moment. There’s so many times where, whether I’m sitting in the booth in the third inning, or I’m looking around and Dan and Aaron are next to me in this amazing stadium and major league teams are out on the field and I’m like, ‘I’m on Sunday night baseball. I’m calling a Major League Baseball game.’
It’s surreal, especially because if you looked a year ago, I had zero idea this was coming. It’s one thing if [the situation is], ‘OK, you’re up for this possible promotion’ or ‘There’s this opening’ and you kind of see the writing on the wall or you’ve been doing this for 10 years and this makes sense, this is the next step. I went from zero to 60.
What have you learned from being in the booth for a year?
A ton. Just getting better. I have a giant ceiling of improvement, just a huge amount of where I want to be. That’s one big thing I’ve honed in on, is really trying to get better week to week. I do have catching up to do; I wasn’t calling baseball games for however many years. Most people in this seat have half a lifetime of experience doing it, but I think that’s what makes me unique, too: I come into it with this enthusiasm of, ‘Hey guys, let’s try this or let’s do this because these are things, as I’m learning, I want to take the viewer along with me.’
How much of your knowledge of baseball every week comes from your playing career and how much of that is weekly preparation?
Definitely a combination. With hitting and certain things with outfield and defense and some strategy I feel like just playing the game for 26 years, it’s a natural ‘Oh, wow, look at this.’ To be honest, I feel like the enthusiasm and energy [I have on the broadcast] is usually because it’s something I’m learning.
So for example this last week, just learning Noah Syndergaard and his times to home plate – it’s something I didn’t experience as a softball player because we didn’t take the same leads as baseball. So when Noah Syndergaard is giving up a lot of steals, I think the average guy who’s played forever is like ‘Yeah, well he’s slow to a plate.’ But what does that mean to a viewer? You get an idea of what that means but this guy has double the amount of steals against him as the next closest guy. Can you show me? Can you tell me?
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
That’s when I get really excited. I spent four days watching videos, talking to pitching coaches, diving into what makes Noah Syndergaard unique. And that way when we got into the game and sure enough two guys tried to steal on him, we were able to jump all over it in a way that just wasn’t ho hum and yeah this is just what he does. I would say at least 80 percent of the viewers aren’t going to be like, ‘I play baseball every single day of my life and I know all of it.’ No.
And I think that’s where taking them along with me in whatever knowledge I’m gaining, and it might have been something I learned yesterday, I want viewers to come along with me and it’s some really cool stuff.
When you first joined Sunday Night Baseball, a lot of people cheered. In fact, anyone who wasn’t a total meathead cheered. But the internet, as the internet is sometimes, was really nasty and shock jocks said horrible things. Were you surprised at the harsh reaction from some pockets of the internet and has it lessened at all or do we just not talk about it anymore?
I think I’ve learned just how to interact with people I don’t know. I think what I’ve learned is in the beginning some of it was almost humorous to me because it was so strong and over-the-top. I think generationally you grow up feeling like this is a genderless society in the sense that if you want to be president, if you want to run a company, if you want to play a sport [you can do that]. I was raised that I could do anything and to have some people so harshly attack me because of my gender at first just seemed humorless — like is this for real? But then just to have it extend – at the end of last year I was really like ‘This is silly’ – but then into this year I got to the point where I just had to stop reading it.
My relationship with Twitter now is more one way. And I used to love to interact with people and even if people came at me about [a point I made during the game] I love that, even if it’s critical, it’s because you listened to me. But if you’re going to call me awful and horrible … I’m always like, ‘Why? Is it something that I said or is it just because I’m female?’ And that’s when I stopped reading it.
It got to the point where it would get to me and … at the end of the day, my producer, my boss, the two guys I’m sitting with in the booth and the game itself — the players and the managers – it matters to me how they feel. But ultimately a fan sitting at home who hates me, I can’t spend energy and let it affect me.
I think one thing that’s sort of mind-boggling to me is that it’s 2016 and we’re still having this conversation. Is part of that just so frustrating?
Even when it was a lot of attention last year because [Mike Bell] came after me and everyone was like, ‘Are you OK?’ and when I first heard the comments — I shouldn’t make light of it because it definitely is a serious issue for men or women to come after people because of the gender, it’s not funny – but it was so ridiculous and over-the-top because I’ve been raised just believing that stuff is not a part of where we’re at in our time now. That’s so 30, 40 years ago. I think that’s where it was easier to make light of it because it’s like, ‘Hey, welcome to modern day, women can do anything so just get used to it.’
At the same time, does being the first woman on Sunday Night Baseball put more pressure on you to never be wrong and to always say something smart?
Oh definitely. That’s the pressure I put on myself. We talk about how it’s cool to come in and just do your job and not have it be bigger than just your job-type thing. But I take on that responsibility, as well. I can’t take for granted that if I mess up, I can’t be selfish and say ‘Oh, well that affects me.’
I realize there’s a much bigger picture here, there’s a lot more people that I want to put a lot of people on my shoulders and say ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s do this together.’ I would say in the first part of this year, I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating. I was for the first time in my life really dealing with pressure that was harder than a seventh inning Olympic at-bat. But at the same time I didn’t want to change it, as much as I felt it and it wasn’t comfortable, I was also excited about it because I knew it was bigger than me and I knew I had the opportunity to be able to bring a lot of women into an industry where there’s very little. So as much as it sounds like it was awful, it wasn’t. It was hard and it still is. I like that. I need to be sure I don’t mess up and it’s not just about me, it’s for all of us.
So when did you start sleeping and eating again?
After the first two or three weeks of the season. April was rough. When I say rough, it was just more I was just so nervous. The night before games, I would be rehearsing everything in my head. You have to think, there’s 30 teams and how many players and they play every day so you’re never really caught up. If you think about it like that it’s overwhelming. But like anything you’ve never done before it’s just getting into a rhythm and understanding what you need to do to prepare. Now I understand what I need to do to prepare myself and have a much healthier way of doing it.
But then I think about a year from now, just the way I’ve taken each week and gone back and watched the games and studied myself and making sure I’m doing the things right. I have a producer that literally will write down feedback every half inning, which is unheard of in this industry. He will take time to watch a three hour baseball game and give me all the feedback I need. That’s like having a coach. So my point is I just get excited. It’s only been technically a whole year from when I first started but even then it was like getting thrown in and now I can have a full season under my belt.
On the flip side, I imagine you’ve inspired a lot of people. What kind of messages do you get?
I started to keep some of that stuff, too. I’ve been getting letters from people and emails people coming up to me and I’ve started to keep more of that so that if there is ever a time when the others are seeping in, I can remind myself there’s a whole lot of people out there that are rooting for me too. I had a mom that came up to me and she told me [about her] daughter. There were all these things she wanted to do … the things she wanted to do were like she wanted to be a dancer, more stereotypical female things, which are great, but the things that she wanted to do were more of what her friends wanted to do.
Recently, she watched a baseball game because [her dad] had it on and she recognized there was a female voice – because I’m not usually on the camera and she asked ‘Is that a woman doing the game?’ And the dad said ‘Yeah, that’s Jessica Mendoza’ and he knew all about me.
The mom said [her daughter] watched the entire baseball game, she had never wanted to watch a baseball game in her entire life, and she watched the whole game and at the end she turned to her mom and said ‘Mommy, I want to do that.’
[The woman’s] eyes started to well up, it was just one of those moments where I was just like ‘Wow.’ She said, ‘Just thank you, she probably won’t even do this but just the fact that she can understand that there are things in this world that it doesn’t have to be what her friends tell her to do.’
And I just love that idea, especially with women, not getting put into these boxes of this is what women do. And that she sat there for two hours and listened just because she recognized a different voice. It was cool and I thought her and I were going to start crying.
OK before I let you go, let’s talk baseball. Is this Cubs thing really going to happen?
I mean it’s funny because you think about Golden State and how ridiculous they were throughout this last season and I think that’s the beauty of this two seasons. You have the regular season and you have the postseason. And the Cubs by far are the best team in baseball. I can argue with anyone and give you a million reasons why, the numbers show it.
Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
Joe Maddon at the helm is someone who knows how to manage a team with expectations. There’s many things that are right but you have to remember once game 162 ends and you start from scratch, you can go home basically the next week. I think this team is best equipped mentally because of Joe but at the end of the day, 108 years of drought, Chicago — and not just Chicago but they’ve become the nation’s team. Even my 7-year-old son loves the Cubs, it’s just a contagious thing that’s happening in this country.
I’m curious to see how they’re going to react if all of a sudden they lose the first two games in the Division Series and their backs are against the wall. But if you were to ask me who’s the team to win the World Series if it started right now, it would be the Cubs. They’re the best. But the whole beauty of any sport is just because you’re the best team does not always mean you’re going to win and that’s why you play.
