Yankees, Athletics series marks historic milestone for women in MLB broadcasting
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- This week's series between the New York Yankees and the Oakland A's is historic, not because of what's taking place on the field, but rather, what's happening in the booth.
Earlier this year, Jenny Cavnar become the first primary play-by-play female announcer in Major League Baseball for the A's.
This comes decades after Yankees radio analyst Suzyn Waldman became the first full-time female broadcaster for an MLB team.
Eyewitness News sports reporter Sam Ryan sat down with the two impressive women for a conversation.
"My first game was 1992 - that's a really long time ago, and I know there has been other women that do some innings, but I've been in that booth a very long time, and the only one. Finally, someone that I have watched for years, do everything right," Waldman said of Cavnar.
"I'm blown away, thank you," Cavnar said. "I'll go back to the first opportunity I had to be in a game broadcast as an analyst, I was filling in on the radio in 2015, and I didn't know what I was doing. I thought that I would just show up and talk some baseball during the game, and I got back to my hotel room and I had an email from Suzyn Waldman."
Cavnar credits surrounding herself with a community of support, which includes Waldman, before taking the leap of faith.
"I don't think I would have ever set out to go do this on my own or call play-by-play. I started to build a community of people that believed in me and told me to trust the process," Cavnar said.
"I'm watching a lot of young women come up now, and they have that community around, and that's the biggest difference - we didn't have anybody, we were by ourselves," Waldman said.
But what about dealing with the critics, social media and the responsibility?
"You're going to have people who like you and don't like you, and then there's the added layer that they have their own issues with females as broadcasters in sports," Cavnar said. "That's not my issue. That's their issue."
"I really knew right from the beginning, right from that first time, if I messed up, somebody wasn't going to get a chance," Waldman said.
"You have this inner dialogue that you're constantly fighting, that you are constantly trying to push away, and the best way to be a broadcaster, is like a player, to play free," Cavnar said.
"The next generation will never know that they can't d this because you turn on the television, you turn on the radio and there's a woman and nobody says anymore, 'there's a woman,' it's just part of the fabric," Waldman said.
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