Jessica Mendoza

Olympic Gold and Silver Medalist and trailblazer Jessica Mendoza joined ESPN in 2007 and in 2015, became the first woman to serve as an analyst for nationally-televised MLB games. She has since become one of the leading voices in ESPN’s Major League Baseball coverage, in addition to her remaining one of the top college softball analysts.

She appears regularly on ESPN studio shows including Baseball Tonight, SportsCenter, Get Up and First Take. Mendoza in 2020 became the first woman to serve as a World Series game analyst on national radio as she joined the MLB on ESPN Radio team for the World Series.

She has continuously made history as a Major League Baseball analyst, becoming the first female ESPN MLB game analyst on television during the August 24, 2015 edition of Monday Night Baseball. A few months later, Mendoza became the first female analyst for a nationally televised MLB Postseason game, calling the American League Wild Card Game on ESPN. That year, she also became the first female analyst for a Men’s College World Series telecast.

Mendoza appeared on several Sunday Night Baseball telecasts during the stretch run of the 2015 season and in 2016, ESPN officially named her to the Sunday Night Baseball team. She is the second-longest tenured Sunday Night Baseball analyst in the history of ESPN’s marquee MLB telecast.

In the 2020 MLB season, she became the first woman to serve as a solo analyst for a national package of MLB game telecasts including weeknight games and holiday baseball. She also served as an analyst in ESPN’s exclusive English-language KBO League coverage for the 2020 regular season.

One of the most notable softball players of the 2000’s, Mendoza’s on-field experience seamlessly translated to television. Her ESPN career began in 2007 with her serving as a softball analyst and college football sideline reporter. In addition to her current MLB contributions, Mendoza has also provided analysis on ESPN and ABC Little League World Series coverage since 2016. She has served as an analyst and reporter for the Men’s College World Series and since 2007 has been the lead analyst for ESPN’s coverage of the Women’s College World Series. The trio of Beth Mowins, Michele Smith and Mendoza have been calling the top collegiate softball games across the nation for nearly two decades. Mendoza also contributes content to espnW.

Prior to her work with ESPN, Mendoza was a field reporter for Yahoo! Sports at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and also served as the lead college softball analyst on FOX Sports.

Mendoza is a two-time Olympian and was a member of the U.S. Women’s National team from 2001-10. Her team took home the Gold Medal in Athens, Greece (2004) and the Silver Medal in Beijing, China (2008). She is both a three-time World Champion (2002, 2006, 2010) and World Cup Champion (2006, 2007, 2010), in addition to being a two-time Pan American Gold Medalist (2003, 2007). In 2006, she was named the USA Softball Athlete of the Year and was also recognized in 2008 as the Women’s Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year. In 2019, Mendoza was inducted into the National Softball Hall of Fame.

Mendoza was a four-time first team All-American while playing outfield at Stanford University. She led the team to their first ever Women’s College World Series appearance and finished her college career with school records that are still held today in: batting average (.416), hits (327), runs scored (230) and career home runs (50). She was a three-time Stanford Female Athlete of the Year and a First Team Academic All-American in 2002.

Mendoza graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies in 2002 and a Masters in Social Sciences in Education in 2003. She is originally from Camarillo, CA.