A Woman in the Booth

 Clare called last night, asking, “Did you listen to the ESPN game?”  It was Cards-Diamondbacks and of very little interest to me.  My bad.  “You remember Jessica Mendoza?  She did color.”  It was the first time for a woman doing that on a national baseball broadcast.

Mendoza is a two-time softball Olympic medal winner from Stanford.  She set all sorts of records for the Cardinal (don’t blame me for the lack of an s here).  I’m pretty sure that the appeal to Clare is one hitter to another.  Male baseball fans might be a tougher sell, and Mendoza knows it.

In an interview with Allure Magazine, she said, “It should be common knowledge that women and men can talk about sports.”  She’s right, and I hope ESPN wants Mendoza for what she thinks rather than how she looks.

NOTE: An earlier version of today's blog found me not listening closely to my daughter.  I confused Mendoza with Michelle Smith, another softball Olympian, who did color for a Dodgers-Braves came on TBS during the 2012 season.  My apologies for the mistake.