ESPN baseball analyst Jessica Mendoza has been with the company since 2014, initially serving as an analyst on Baseball Tonight. Less than two years later, she made history by stepping into the broadcast booth for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball telecasts, becoming the first female broadcaster to do so.
Recently, Mendoza appeared as a guest on the Front Office Sports podcast Redefined with Leslie Osborne and Arielle Houlihan. During the conversation, she reflected on her journey to the broadcast booth and acknowledged that, even nearly a decade later, some baseball fans still struggle to accept her presence in the role.
“The reaction to my initial (game) wasn’t like, just wasn’t kind of ‘sneak in,’ it was a huge game,” recalled Mendoza calling her first game on ESPN which ended up as a no-hitter by Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta. “People freaking reacted to my voice. It was like people loved it, or they freaking wanted to kill me. It was dramatic on both ends.”
Beyond her work on Sunday Night Baseball, Mendoza has also contributed to ESPN’s coverage of the College World Series and Little League World Series. Additionally, she has worked as a sideline reporter for the network’s college football broadcasts.
She continued to share her perspective on the ongoing challenges of being a woman in Major League Baseball broadcasting, even after an accomplished career as a gold medal-winning softball player and a four-time First-Team All-American at Stanford.
“The beauty and the beast of America’s pastime, a sport that is so ingrained in our, let’s say, ancient culture,” noted Mendoza. “It’s the sport that that has the least amount of change, or wanting to change.”
However, she also acknowledged that baseball has evolved in recent seasons. For example, the implementation of a pitch clock has led to faster games and increased viewership. That said, she pointed out that change in baseball is often met with resistance.
“It is America’s past time, good or bad,” Mendoza noted. “There are people that hold on the baseball and the way that it’s been and don’t want change more than anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”
While the representation of women in Major League Baseball has improved since Mendoza first joined ESPN, she remains surprised by the continued resistance toward women in the sport at all levels.
“As much as it has changed and that there’s more women,” Mendoza explained. “It’s not welcomed in the way that’s like, ‘dude it’s 2025.’ Come on. This isn’t that big of a deal to have women that are good at their job do something that a man can do.”
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