Whenever you get to watch Jessica Mendoza analyze a baseball or softball game in-studio or at the ballpark, you can hear how much fun she is having. Last year, she got the chance to join Spectrum SportsNet in Los Angeles as an analyst on Dodgers games.
This week, Mendoza was a guest on the Time To Schein podcast with Adam Schein. Schein asked her whether she enjoys being in the studio more or being on the games.
“Studio is where I feel like I can be me. I can expand, especially on shows like GET UP compared to SportsCenter. SportsCenter, you are kind of given a couple of topics, you have a couple of minutes. You know what you are going to get. GET UP, it can be all over the place and the way that Greeny allows. I’ll bring a bat, I can jump up, I can run over here in the studio. We can go completely off topic. It’s so much fun to be honest. Baseball is fun.”
Mendoza does enjoy being at the games and she said she is currently working on a feature about the technologies hitters use at Dodgers Stadium. She said she needs to be at games to do her job, but being in the studio makes her feel like she is a child all over again.
During her broadcasting career, Mendoza has always liked to break things down from a hitter’s perspective. When she first joined ESPN and was at the College World Series in Omaha, she was the on-field reporter with Orel Hershiser and Kyle Peterson as the analysts in the booth. She asked a question to reporters about being able to have a monitor in the dugout and it allowed her to keep breaking down swings and providing a hitter’s perspective on the action.
“My first year was Kyle’s first year being moved into the booth. I went and watched film from years before and was like hey guys, I get I can be a reporter, but is there anyway that I can actually have a monitor in the dugout and maybe break down some stuff? We had Orel and KP in the booth (pitchers). Pitching, pitching, pitching. C’mon guys, this is College baseball. They rake.”
