The Boston Red Sox made history Tuesday night when its first all-women broadcast team announced the game at Fenway Park as part of the team’s Women’s Celebration Night.
Emma Tiedemann did play-by-play while Alanna Rizzo was the color analyst. Kasey Hudson was the sideline reporter, while Natalie Noury anchored the studio show with analyst Jen McCaffrey.
Tiedemann, who usually works as the play-by-play announcer for the Red Sox’s Double-A team in Portland, told HuffPost that she’s used to conversations about her gender.
“I’m hoping that in the very near future, we don’t have to talk about it like this anymore,” she said. “We don’t have to make this one-season celebration game, because hopefully there will be more and more women taking full-time roles in the future. And this won’t be the story of a game on a Tuesday night. It’ll just be baseball eventually.”
While this is the Red Sox’s first all-women broadcast crew, MLB made history for the same thing in 2021 when an all-women broadcast team announced a game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles. Rizzo, who did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, was part of that 2021 crew, and she told MLB.com that she has her own style of being a color analyst.
“I’m not going to be Lou Merloni. I’m not going to be Will Middlebrooks,” Rizzo told the site. “That’s not who I am. I’m not going to be breaking down pitch sequences and those types of things. I mean, that’s more of what Emma does. I have more of a human element and a storytelling side. I’ve covered the game for decades, but never in this role.”
The all-women broadcast team was a one-night-only event for the Red Sox, but Tiedemann said she is working “really, really hard” to eventually work in the major leagues full time. She said she looks up to Jenny Cavnar, who is one of the few women full-time play-by-play announcers in the MLB.
Announcing a major league game was different than when she announced in the minor leagues. With access to more statistics and information, Tiedemann said it was a “game changer.” Plus, she didn’t have to pull tarp, something she’s tasked with doing as part of her job in the minors.
“Ten years of doing that and I finally make it to the big leagues,” she said, laughing. “Last night was great.”
Only a few hours after the Red Sox made history, the MLB announced that Jen Pawol will become the league’s first woman to umpire a major league game when she makes her debut Saturday when the Miami Marlins face the Atlanta Braves. While the NFL and NBA have had women referees in the past, this marks the first time a woman has umpired an MLB game.
Tiedemann told HuffPost that she has known Pawol since Tiedemann worked as the play-by-play announcer for the Lexington Legends, which is part of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, and Pawol was an umpire.
“We date back to Single-A baseball when [Pawol] was the only female umpire in baseball at the time,” Tiedemann told HuffPost. “Women look out for each other, so when she came through Lexington, I actually stocked the locker room with some more feminine options for shampoo and soap and some feminine touches. So we’ve kept in touch ever since.”
