BOSTON -- For a Fenway first on Tuesday night, all you had to do was look up at NESN’s broadcast booth.
That was where play-by-play announcer Emma Tiedemann and color analyst Alanna Rizzo did the first completely female broadcast in Red Sox history as part of Women’s Celebration Night at Fenway Park.
On Aug. 26, 2024, Tiedemann and Rylee Pay did a couple of innings on their own for Game 2 of a Red Sox-Blue Jays doubleheader, but were mostly joined by Dave O’Brien and Kevin Youkilis.
Tuesday was their show entirely in the booth. Down on the field, Kasey Hudson took over sideline duties for the night. NESN’s WooSox and Hockey East reporter Natalie Noury anchored the studio show, with The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey serving as analyst.
Meanwhile, there were approximately a dozen women working on the telecast behind the scenes, including lead game producer Amy Kaplan.
Prior to the game, Red Sox manager Alex Cora expressed enthusiasm about the steady rise of women in baseball, but he expects more dramatic elevation in the future.
“We’re making strides,” said Cora. “You see it, not only up there [in the broadcast booth], but in offices, in the media, in the training room, all over the place. At one point, a woman will manage a big league team.”
As the first minority manager in Red Sox history, Cora is passionate about inclusion in baseball.
“If you're a minority, you're a woman, man, whatever, if you're capable, you should work [in baseball],” Cora said. “... I have met so many great women throughout my big league career, from Luchy [Binet] Guerra with the Dodgers all the way to [Red Sox assistant general manager] Raquel [Ferreira] here. And they have impacted not only the organizations that I played with, but they have impacted me as a person, as a baseball guy. And I'm very proud of all of them.”
For Tiedemann, who drew rave reviews for her MLB debut with Pay (her broadcast partner at Portland at the time) last year, Tuesday got her one step closer to her goal of being a full-time play-by-play broadcaster for an MLB team.
“Once I wrapped up my first full season of calling baseball in Alaska in 2014, I was hooked,” said Tiedemann. “So ever since then, slowly but surely, I would like to think I'm getting closer. My overall goal is to be full time with a team at some point. But I'm not rushing things. I'm taking it one day at a time and one game at a time, and happy with where I'm at right now, and happy with how things have gone so far.”
For seven-time Emmy Award-winner Rizzo, this was the latest chapter of her highly successful career in baseball media that has allowed her to flourish on many platforms. Including one that set her up nicely for Tuesday’s piece of Red Sox history.
“I was part of the first ever all female broadcast in Major League Baseball ... and that was in July of 2021 when I was with MLB Network, and it was also broadcast on YouTube. So it was the Baltimore Orioles against the Tampa Bay Rays,” said Rizzo. “Melanie Newman was play by play. Sarah Langs was color. I was the sideline reporter, and pre and post was hosted by Heidi Watney and Lauren Gardner.”
Tuesday gave Rizzo the chance to do one of the only things she’d never done in her career covering baseball: Do a game from the booth.
“I'm not going to be Lou Merloni. I'm not going to be Will Middlebrooks,” Rizzo said. “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.”
As accommodating as Tiedemann and Rizzo were with media requests in the days leading up to Tuesday, their biggest victory will come when two women calling a game together isn’t a story.
“We're having this conversation right now and doing these interviews because it's an all-female broadcast, but if you look at the resumes, I mean, we've been doing this for decades in terms of covering sports,” said Rizzo. “It’s no different than any other day of what we've done at the ballpark. So an opportunity exists if you want to go after it.”