The year 2015 has been huge for women in sports. Between the victorious journey of the women’s US World Cup team, the hiring of the first full-time female NBA coach, the first female NFL coach and the first female NFL referee, women have made leaps and bounds across sexist boundaries in the world of sports. Tuesday, October 6, 2015 was no different as Jessica Mendoza stepped into ESPN’s broadcasting booth and became the first female analyst for a postseason game. Here’s what you should know about this historic moment and woman.
Mendoza knows what she’s talking about. An All-American and two-time Olympic medalist softball player, she has the experience most analysts would only dream of having. Mendoza currently holds the career records at Stanford University in highest batting average, hits, home runs, slugging percentage and runs scored. She started working at ESPN in 2007, has worked with Baseball Tonight since 2014 and worked on the Women’s College World Series. She became a regular analyst for ESPN earlier this season. To put it simply, Mendoza knows her way around the game and has the credentials to prove it.
She’s no stranger to making history in baseball. On August 24, Mendoza became the first female analyst to call an ESPN MLB game. She then took over Curt Schilling’s position on Sunday Night Baseball following his controversial tweet and consequential suspension for the rest of the season. Mendoza was highly praised after her first debut. Sports writer Chris Cwik went so far as to say her analysis was “the type of analysis fans deserve, and it’s something they haven’t received in the Sunday Night Baseball booth for quite some time”.
Some people were unhappy at having a woman as a commentator – and didn’t hide it.
This astute comment was made by an Atlanta radio host, prompting the Atlanta Falcons to make a comment calling the tweet “dissapointing and innapropriate.”
She handled the sexist backlash like a pro.
“If it had been a substantive [critique], then I would have been more apt to listen because I would have respected someone coming from a more intelligent space. But if it’s going to just knock the fact that I’m female, to me, it’s not even worth my time.”
“My college coach was a baseball guy. So why is no one questioning why a baseball player is coaching or analyzing softball when the reverse happens? To the average viewer, it’s not just like ‘This is a seamless crossover,’ but for me, it’s all I’ve known.”
She earned rave reviews from those who focused on her analyzing skills, not her gender.
“Jessica Mendoza is good at her job. And that’s more crucial than any other sentence in this post. She’s insightful and interesting and offers a different perspective. If you don’t want to hear different voices and different opinions while watching sports, then why not just watch black-and-white VHS tapes from the good ol’ days?” – Mike Oz
At the end of the day, Jessica Mendoza continued to push against the gender barrier in sports and show the world just how capable she is.
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