Katie LinkESPN broadcaster Jessica Mendoza just got a permanent gig at the major leagues.
ESPN tweeted the announcement Friday that Mendoza would stay with "Sunday Night Baseball" the rest of this season. She made history last month as ESPN's first woman in the booth for a Major League Baseball game and then filled in for suspended analyst Curt Schilling this past Sunday.
Mendoza joined ESPN back in 2007 and has worked as a sideline reporter for the network and as a color analyst during the Women's College World Series. (Video via ESPN)
A former Team USA softball player herself, Mendoza got her shot in the booth after Schilling tweeted a meme comparing Muslims to Nazis.
Not surprisingly, Schilling quickly got benched for that move. But some are surprised a woman took his spot.
While the professionals are giving Mendoza high praise for her work so far, she admits not everyone has been so receptive.
She told Allure: "I have definitely heard everything good and bad you could hear from people, and it doesn’t bother me. Because when it's something like a tweet that says, 'Women don’t know baseball; they shouldn’t talk about baseball,' it’s like, 'OK, welcome to 2015. Where have you been for the last 20 years?'"
We may be more accustomed to seeing gals report from the sidelines, but this move to the booth is a big one.
In ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary about the first women sports reporters allowed in pro locker rooms, some of the reporters brought up this very issue.
"When I think about female reporters today it always irks me that there are no women in the anchor booth," Robin Herman said in the documentary "Nine for IX: Let Them Wear Towels." (Video via ESPN)
Well, Mendoza tackled that barrier. And based on fan reaction after ESPN's announcement, we're guessing she's going to be the idol of young female sports journalists everywhere.
This video includes images from Getty Images.
