Welcome back to Talkin’ Gaysball where sisters are calling it for themselves.
Back in the spring, I went off on the Marlins for pressuring Kim Ng out of her job as GM, despite a sterling performance that led the moribund franchise to the playoffs last year.
Perhaps Marlins owner Bruce Sherman can take comfort that every one of his team’s 85 losses this season has been overseen by a Y chromosome.
Despite that step back, 2024 has been good for women in baseball in another important area: the broadcast booth.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
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On Monday night, AA Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs broadcasters Emma Tiedemann and Rylee Pay got called up to Fenway Park to make the uplifting kind of history by becoming the first women duo to call all nine innings of a Boston Red Sox game.
As a franchise notorious for being the last MLB team to integrate their roster, the Red Sox helping lead the charge for inclusion in this area is incredibly welcome news.
The duo’s barrier shattering broadcast was lauded throughout the league. Afterwards, Tiedemann admitted to some understandable nerves but also settled in to the familiar rhythm of the game quickly.
She explained, “I think the first batter walking to the plate that it was like, oh, now it’s time for Red Sox baseball.”
It was her first major league game, but Tiedemann was already channeling the spirit of Vin Scully like a 20-year pro.
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Later on in the game, Pay felt that she arrived when she got to be on the call for an eighth inning Jarren Duran home run.
“I just remember kind of feeling numb. Like one of those, ‘Oh wow, this is happening?’” she remembered.
Even better, it was a night where Duran didn’t step on the moment with an anti-gay slur. Maybe women broadcasters should call every Red Sox game.
Afterward as Tiedemann and Pay were soaking in becoming the toast of New England baseball, they got a social media shout-out from a legend of legends.
A general rule for life: when Billie Jean King tags your Twitter handle, you know you’ve done something right.
Their moment came a little over a month after the sublime Beth Mowins joined Elise Menaker, and Taylor McGregor in calling the first all-woman broadcast in Chicago Cubs history.
I watched that game and can verify that it was nine innings of technical brilliance, intelligent insight and pure joy.
In fact, I’m going to give Mowins, Menaker, and McGregor the ultimate compliment: they made me want to watch the 2024 Cubs. So if Mowins wanted to end her call with “Do you believe in miracles?” I would have totally understood.
And all of this happened during the same season where Jenny Cavnar became the first female lead play-by-play voice in baseball history with her work on Oakland A’s TV.
Cavnar has been charting a new path forward with every game she calls. The only downside is that due to her employer, she’s also the only MLB broadcaster who can’t call A’s owner John Fisher an incompetent failson.
But all she has to do is accurately describe A’s baseball and that message will come across.
It Must Be Exhausting Always Rooting for This Team
I joked about the Cubs earlier but they’ve actually been on a good run recently, going 17-8 in their past 25 games after three brutally lackluster months.
Manager Craig Counsell admitted to McGregor that their turnaround could be credited to a higher power.
“I was gifted a Taylor Swift candle and we’ve been lighting that before games in my office…and we’ve had a nice little run here so we’re gonna credit Taylor Swift,” Counsell said.
If Swift is somehow responsible for an entire month of playing the White Sox, Marlins, and Pirates, she deserves a Grammy for writing a baseball schedule.
MLB Thirst Trap of the Week
Every so often, I come across a player who clicks something in the dark recesses of my mind and makes me think, “Oh, he’s hot, but alas, he’s a Cardinal.”
But when that player gets traded, it’s a cause for celebration.
Which is why this week’s TTOTW is about me finally being able to declare loud and proud, “Holy cow, Tommy Edman!”
Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
I could stare at that face all day. More importantly, now I can do it for reasons other than desperately trying to ignore the uniform.
