Top 104 Quotes & Sayings by Jessica Mendoza

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American journalist Jessica Mendoza.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Jessica Mendoza

Jessica Ofelia Mendoza is an American sportscaster and former softball player. Currently, she serves as a color commentator and analyst for ESPN's coverage of Major League Baseball and Los Angeles Dodgers coverage on Spectrum SportsNet LA. As a softball outfielder, Mendoza was a collegiate four-time First Team All-American and two-time Olympic medalist. Mendoza played from 1999 to 2002 at Stanford and was a member of the United States women's national softball team from 2004 to 2010. She won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She played professionally in National Pro Fastpitch and was named 2011 Player of the Year and currently ranks in the top 10 for career batting average and slugging percentage. She was an analyst on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball from 2016 to 2019. She was dropped from the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast after the 2019 season but remains an ESPN baseball analyst. Mendoza was named by fans and experts to the Greatest College Softball Team as an outfielder, one of only three to achieve the honor.

It should be common knowledge that women and men can talk about sports.
Everyone's got advice, everyone's got their two cents. Try to streamline, like, who are the people that I trust the most? Sometimes I call it my board of directors. They're going to challenge you, but they're also going to support you. They're not going to just tell you what you want to hear, either.
I got my masters in social sciences and education at Stanford, and initially - this is back in 2002 or 2003 when I graduated - I wanted to move to D.C. and work on education reform, specifically with No Child Left Behind.
I'd had colleagues tell me, 'You should be calling games.' But to actually have a producer call me and say, 'We want you in the booth,' I was like, What? — © Jessica Mendoza
I'd had colleagues tell me, 'You should be calling games.' But to actually have a producer call me and say, 'We want you in the booth,' I was like, What?
I am a very honest person.
The Olympic Games are the greatest sporting event in the world.
If anyone knows women, we like a lot of different things and we're not predictable. We definitely don't fall into a cookie-cutter mold. And I think that's one of the coolest things about us. You never know what's coming next.
We see women on the field; we see them interviewing players, we see them coming out of the dugout. But if you put them in the booth - like, hold up, wait a second - you haven't been there before. This is different.
Well, my mom actually taught me how to fish. We used to go when I was little, like 5 or 6 years old.
My college coach was a baseball guy. So why is no one questioning why a baseball player is coaching or analyzing softball when the reverse happens?
I think all women want to get out of our own little bubble and challenge a man's world. And I love challenges.
I never realized how hurtful people can be. They hate me so much for being a female in a men's sport. And I'm just like, 'Really? It's 2016, people. Women can do anything.'
Stanford opened up a whole different perspective for me. I learned how to take my own passions and apply them to so many different topics, to open up the way I saw things and own the things that made me unique.
I want to be in the booth any day - Sunday, Monday, Wednesday - it doesn't matter to me. I'm hooked. I love it.
When we are down in Mexico, I remember with my mom's help we caught a barracuda and then we ate it that night. And that, to me, was so cool, to be able to filet it, see the whole process. Especially a fish that big.
I think we should always challenge ourselves to do things that have never been done. — © Jessica Mendoza
I think we should always challenge ourselves to do things that have never been done.
I found that I can never know enough, and that many times the best form of education is through communication.
I really try hard to give consistently good analysis.
At the end of the day, what people will give credit for is how Octobers turn out. That's how it works for Yankees managers.
I think the biggest thing I can say to that is every female is different. Not that every man isn't, but speaking on behalf on my gender, I think women can watch sports exactly like men, and others watch it exactly the opposite way.
I'm a big Geena Davis fan. I have a Geena Davis-signed baseball, which is funny because I don't get signatures from most baseball players I meet.
I like it when my heart's pounding and I'm sweating and I'm nervous.
I grew up in a big Mexican family and... we always were so comfortable in our own skin. So society, the stuff that I think we see a lot now for young girls, didn't really reach me because I had this huge Mexican bubble around me saying, 'You're beautiful. You're amazing. You're strong. And be you.'
I try to challenge myself, each week, to do something that is a little different or something maybe a little more exciting or personalized.
I'm hard on myself, like, 'Oh, why did you say that?' But it helps me grow.
I'm a jock.
Being in New York for 10 days during the World Series and appearing on a bunch of shows, I felt like it was a trial run to have more of a studio presence. The more consistently I started to do it, the more I grew to love it. It allows me to push baseball ideas and content in a bunch of different places.
I just knew: first-time female on ESPN, there's going to be some backlash, like any change. There's always going to be resistance. There are going to be people that hear a female voice or see a female figure and are completely against it.
My husband actually quit his job as a civil engineer so that he could travel, so we could be together as a family while I played professionally, which was crazy.
I'm a big Alex Cora fan, as far as aggressiveness, the things that he sees like pitch tipping. His eyes are really good.
If people criticize me because they don't like how I break down one of Giancarlo Stanton's at-bats, OK. If they criticize me because I'm a woman, that's not OK.
As much as I want to be like, It's just baseball, I'm just another person,' unfortunately it's not that way.
I know that people are going to recognize my voice as being different and they are going to be saying, 'Let me listen a little bit closer to see if she says something that I don't agree with.' They're probably going to pay a little bit more attention.
My dad was a baseball coach, and then I switched to softball. Baseball was all I knew until I crossed over. It never seemed like a big deal.
I don't care about Joe Schmo with two Twitter followers saying bad things to me, but if the guy I'm sitting next to on the telecast thinks that way, that matters a lot to me.
A female voice can automatically trigger a reaction. The reasons why? Sound is the initial thing, and I've had people tell me that.
I've gotten a lot of comments about how I look and I can't help but think, Is anyone listening to what I'm saying? If I were a guy, no one would be saying, 'Wow, look at those pants' or 'Look at those legs.'
I think this is a sport where we can really challenge all of ourselves as baseball fans, as baseball players, even the casual viewers. It's just good to think, What can we do that hasn't been done?
I had a baseball swing my whole life. When I was growing up, everyone had a different, very specific softball swing that was very short. And I had a big stride and I had, you know, a baseball swing, and people did not like it.
There had never really been a female that was breaking down a swing. So when I'd walk into a clubhouse, I'd have to explain a little bit of who I was. — © Jessica Mendoza
There had never really been a female that was breaking down a swing. So when I'd walk into a clubhouse, I'd have to explain a little bit of who I was.
In a perfect world, if I can get conversations done at a batting cage, there's exactly the place I want to be.
As an Olympic athlete, especially a female Olympic athletic, social media's such an amazing place, people are so positive, all these young girls. Anything negative is such a small space, people aren't coming at you for their gender.
My older son, when things were at the peak of attention, comes up to me and says: 'Mom, I know people are saying you're doing stuff that's cool. But I listened, and all you did was talk. It was pretty boring.' Thanks for that.
If you're going to put me in the booth, make sure it's because I'm good enough to be there.
As a mom, spending quality time on the water with my family is a simple and relaxing way to unplug.
There have been so many pivotal moments throughout my career, and I look back and say I really craved big moments - when your heart's pounding and everything is on the line.
It's important to be a positive female role model in a world with a lot of Kardashians.
I didn't play baseball my entire life, so I do bring something a little more unique to the telecast and I get really excited about stuff that, maybe if I had been around baseball my whole life, I would just say, 'Come on. Everybody knows that. Its not a big deal.'
It started with 'A League of Their Own.' I mean, to me, if you played softball or baseball as a girl growing up, that is the staple movie, like, where girls are portrayed as athletes, and real, like, different, from Madonna, you know, to Geena Davis. I mean, I could quote that movie, every single line.
I don't filter things really.
Having a father as a football and a baseball coach, I grew up around college baseball players, college football players, like, I just knew sports my whole life. — © Jessica Mendoza
Having a father as a football and a baseball coach, I grew up around college baseball players, college football players, like, I just knew sports my whole life.
If you truly want to be great, don't get caught up in what has been done before or who has done it.
If I'm saying something with an intelligent background, then at least it is creating conversation. Whether that conversation is people agreeing or disagreeing, I'm happy.
If you take any player in their position, there's nobody better than Mookie Betts in right field. I'll take him over a short stop at their position. That's how good he is.
The most erratic thing I ever did was going blonde.
Own your differences and don't always try to fit in. The more unique you are, the more you stand out.
I've learned to not forecast anything beyond the year, because when I went to Stanford, I originally wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. So it's just hilarious to look back at all of the things I wanted to do.
I'm different. Like, I recognize that, and I need to make sure that I am as prepared, that I understand, that I've done everything I can, knowing that people are gonna wanna say, 'She doesn't belong.' I wanna prove to them I do.
After a Sunday night game, what I do is I usually wait like a day and a half before going on Twitter.
I think there's something to baseball, golf, fishing that there's downtime within all of those sports. Even though you're still doing the sport and everything that's involved, there's still this time to be able to think and have conversations.
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