I'm different. Like, I recognize that, and I need to make sure that I am as prepared, that I understand, that I've done everything I can, knowing that people are gonna wanna say, 'She doesn't belong.' I wanna prove to them I do.
— Jessica Mendoza
It started with 'A League of Their Own.' I mean, to me, if you played softball or baseball as a girl growing up, that is the staple movie, like, where girls are portrayed as athletes, and real, like, different, from Madonna, you know, to Geena Davis. I mean, I could quote that movie, every single line.
When we are down in Mexico, I remember with my mom's help we caught a barracuda and then we ate it that night. And that, to me, was so cool, to be able to filet it, see the whole process. Especially a fish that big.
I really try hard to give consistently good analysis.
I try to challenge myself, each week, to do something that is a little different or something maybe a little more exciting or personalized.
Own your differences and don't always try to fit in. The more unique you are, the more you stand out.
I think this is a sport where we can really challenge all of ourselves as baseball fans, as baseball players, even the casual viewers. It's just good to think, What can we do that hasn't been done?
It should be common knowledge that women and men can talk about sports.
If anyone knows women, we like a lot of different things and we're not predictable. We definitely don't fall into a cookie-cutter mold. And I think that's one of the coolest things about us. You never know what's coming next.
It's important to be a positive female role model in a world with a lot of Kardashians.
I don't care about Joe Schmo with two Twitter followers saying bad things to me, but if the guy I'm sitting next to on the telecast thinks that way, that matters a lot to me.
Everyone's got advice, everyone's got their two cents. Try to streamline, like, who are the people that I trust the most? Sometimes I call it my board of directors. They're going to challenge you, but they're also going to support you. They're not going to just tell you what you want to hear, either.
If people criticize me because they don't like how I break down one of Giancarlo Stanton's at-bats, OK. If they criticize me because I'm a woman, that's not OK.
My husband actually quit his job as a civil engineer so that he could travel, so we could be together as a family while I played professionally, which was crazy.
There have been so many pivotal moments throughout my career, and I look back and say I really craved big moments - when your heart's pounding and everything is on the line.
We see women on the field; we see them interviewing players, we see them coming out of the dugout. But if you put them in the booth - like, hold up, wait a second - you haven't been there before. This is different.
I'm hard on myself, like, 'Oh, why did you say that?' But it helps me grow.
The most erratic thing I ever did was going blonde.
I had a baseball swing my whole life. When I was growing up, everyone had a different, very specific softball swing that was very short. And I had a big stride and I had, you know, a baseball swing, and people did not like it.
Well, my mom actually taught me how to fish. We used to go when I was little, like 5 or 6 years old.
I didn't play baseball my entire life, so I do bring something a little more unique to the telecast and I get really excited about stuff that, maybe if I had been around baseball my whole life, I would just say, 'Come on. Everybody knows that. Its not a big deal.'
I found that I can never know enough, and that many times the best form of education is through communication.
If you truly want to be great, don't get caught up in what has been done before or who has done it.
I think all women want to get out of our own little bubble and challenge a man's world. And I love challenges.
Being in New York for 10 days during the World Series and appearing on a bunch of shows, I felt like it was a trial run to have more of a studio presence. The more consistently I started to do it, the more I grew to love it. It allows me to push baseball ideas and content in a bunch of different places.
If I'm saying something with an intelligent background, then at least it is creating conversation. Whether that conversation is people agreeing or disagreeing, I'm happy.
My dad was a baseball coach, and then I switched to softball. Baseball was all I knew until I crossed over. It never seemed like a big deal.
As much as I want to be like, It's just baseball, I'm just another person,' unfortunately it's not that way.
After a Sunday night game, what I do is I usually wait like a day and a half before going on Twitter.
I think we should always challenge ourselves to do things that have never been done.
I don't filter things really.
I've learned to not forecast anything beyond the year, because when I went to Stanford, I originally wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. So it's just hilarious to look back at all of the things I wanted to do.
I never realized how hurtful people can be. They hate me so much for being a female in a men's sport. And I'm just like, 'Really? It's 2016, people. Women can do anything.'
I'm a jock.
Having a father as a football and a baseball coach, I grew up around college baseball players, college football players, like, I just knew sports my whole life.
I think there's something to baseball, golf, fishing that there's downtime within all of those sports. Even though you're still doing the sport and everything that's involved, there's still this time to be able to think and have conversations.
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?
I know that people are going to recognize my voice as being different and they are going to be saying, 'Let me listen a little bit closer to see if she says something that I don't agree with.' They're probably going to pay a little bit more attention.
Stanford opened up a whole different perspective for me. I learned how to take my own passions and apply them to so many different topics, to open up the way I saw things and own the things that made me unique.
There had never really been a female that was breaking down a swing. So when I'd walk into a clubhouse, I'd have to explain a little bit of who I was.
I've gotten a lot of comments about how I look and I can't help but think, Is anyone listening to what I'm saying? If I were a guy, no one would be saying, 'Wow, look at those pants' or 'Look at those legs.'
I'm a big Geena Davis fan. I have a Geena Davis-signed baseball, which is funny because I don't get signatures from most baseball players I meet.
I'd had colleagues tell me, 'You should be calling games.' But to actually have a producer call me and say, 'We want you in the booth,' I was like, What?
If you take any player in their position, there's nobody better than Mookie Betts in right field. I'll take him over a short stop at their position. That's how good he is.
If you're going to put me in the booth, make sure it's because I'm good enough to be there.
I am a very honest person.
I just knew: first-time female on ESPN, there's going to be some backlash, like any change. There's always going to be resistance. There are going to be people that hear a female voice or see a female figure and are completely against it.
I think the biggest thing I can say to that is every female is different. Not that every man isn't, but speaking on behalf on my gender, I think women can watch sports exactly like men, and others watch it exactly the opposite way.
I got my masters in social sciences and education at Stanford, and initially - this is back in 2002 or 2003 when I graduated - I wanted to move to D.C. and work on education reform, specifically with No Child Left Behind.
I grew up in a big Mexican family and... we always were so comfortable in our own skin. So society, the stuff that I think we see a lot now for young girls, didn't really reach me because I had this huge Mexican bubble around me saying, 'You're beautiful. You're amazing. You're strong. And be you.'
