PORTLAND, Maine — On a cluttered cork bulletin board just above Emma Tiedemann’s left shoulder, push-pins hold minor-league rosters, lineups, player name pronunciations, stats and schedules.
There’s also a white index card with the words: Preparation, evaluation, concentration, curiosity, impartiality, imperturbability.
They’re the six essentials for play-by-play, according to the legendary Red Barber in his book ‘The Broadcasters’.
Tiedemann, the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs’ director of broadcasting, re-reads Barber’s final chapter detailing those pillars before the start of each baseball season.
Tiedemann, a Dallas area native, was hired by the Sea Dogs as their lead broadcaster four years ago, driving from Lexington, Kentucky, where she’d served as a Single-A broadcaster for two seasons, up to Maine, just days before the pandemic shut down the 2020 minor-league season and wiped out her first year in the Portland booth.
In 2021, when the minor-league season commenced, Tiedemann did the job solo. Last year, she was able to hire an assistant broadcaster in Riley Edwards but at the end of the season, he got a job with the High-A team of the Tampa Bay Rays. When she started looking to hire a new assistant broadcaster at the end of last year, Tiedemann, who’s been working in baseball for the last 10 years, was seeking someone with experience but also room to grow. Roughly 100 people applied and after sifting through resumes and tapes, whittling down the applicant pool to about 10 and doing Zoom interviews to figure out on-air chemistry and flow, one named rose to the top: Rylee Pay.
Tiedemann, 30, knew hiring Pay, 22, would mean they’d be the second all-female booth in professional baseball history. Melanie Newman and Suzie Cool became the first all-woman broadcast team in 2019, also for a Red Sox affiliate, the Single-A Salem Red Sox.
Tiedemann wasn’t looking to make headlines by hiring Pay; she saw legitimate talent and potential, the best candidate among the dozens that applied.
“(The extra attention) was in the back of mind, but I’ve been in this position since 2020 and I still get interviews because of the woman thing, so I figured whatever happens there’s going to be interviews,” she said.
While some women had applied for the position in previous years, they didn’t have the play-by-play experience. Tiedemann was encouraged by the fact that Pay had interned in collegiate summer leagues like the Northwoods League and Cape Cod Baseball League and had done some broadcasting work at the University of Las Vegas Nevada.
“It was cool on a personal level to have Rylee apply,” Tiedemann said.
Tiedemann passed her recommendations off to her boss, vice president of communications Chris Cameron, and he approved.
Pay was finishing up her senior year at UNLV when she found out she got the job.
“My life mantra is take the risk or lose the chance,” she said.
She worked out a plan with her professors to finish her courses remotely and just before the Double-A season started, she arrived in Maine for the first time. She’d spent the previous summer on the Cape in Cotuit, but this was a bit farther north for the Las Vegas native.
“People from the West Coast would ask where exactly I was going and I’d say, ‘Think Canada,’” she said with a laugh.
While it’s only been two months on air together, Tiedemann and Pay have a seamless broadcast, one that streams on MiLB.TV and WPEI radio in Portland.
Tiedemann calls all 138 games while Pay helps out with 69 home broadcasts. When at home, Tiedemann does play-by-play for the first three innings with Pay on color commentary, before switching for the middle innings. They return to Tiedemann on the play-by-play for the final three. Pay also hosts the pregame and postgame shows. When Tiedemann is on the road, Pay produces the show from the radio station. She also creates the graphics and cuts video for social media each day.
Tiedemann enjoys having a partner for the long season, but it’s also something that’s helped her grow as a broadcaster. In previous jobs, she had often been solo. When she returns from a road trip with the team, where she’s calling the entire game by herself, she needs to remind herself to let Pay have her airtime.
“That’s a big thing for me, making sure this isn’t a one-woman show,” Tiedemann said.
Typically Tiedemann arrives at Hadlock Field each morning no later than 8:30 a.m. and spends the day preparing game notes, updating stats for the team and league, printing and distributing notes in the press box, sorting out in-game promotions and sponsors, holding a staff meeting, talking with Portland manager Chad Epperson to get up to speed on roster moves and gathering information from him that she might use on the broadcast. She also handles media requests for Portland’s prospects. This past week was busier than normal with Red Sox No. 1 prospect Marcelo Mayer just promoted.
Just before game time, Tiedemann prepares her broadcast notes and writes out her scorebook. With Pay on the pregame show, she enters the broadcast booth just as the show is ending and the national anthem is beginning.
It’s tight quarters in their space directly behind home plate, no bigger than 6 feet by 6 feet. An extra chair in the booth has to be pushed all the way to the window in order for the door to close.
This is the minor leagues, but there’s nothing amateur about their broadcast. Both women know that there will always be extra scrutiny because of their gender.
At the same time, they are equal parts polished but loose, conversational yet informative.
“I like to have a professional broadcast, but if our clubhouse manager brings up Sea Dog Biscuits,” Tiedmann said, referring to the ice cream concession stand staple, “we can talk and laugh and Rylee should have the freedom to bring up that kind of fun stuff.”
Their teamwork and chemistry is smooth and unforced on and off the air. Last week, two foul balls shattered Pay’s windshield in the lot in front of Hadlock Field where the staffers park their cars.
“This is how you know she’s a good teammate,” Pay said of Tiedemann, “I pulled into the lot today and she was parked in the spot where I’d gotten hit, so that was nice of her.”
Pay returned to UNLV a few weeks ago to walk for graduation, but is already well on her way to gaining valuable experience in her field.
“Emma saw an opportunity for someone she could work with and mold and we’ve seen a lot of progress in Rylee’s performance already,” said Sea Dogs communications VP Cameron. “She’s a very quick learner and Emma is a good mentor and has really helped bring her to the top level, so it’s really magical to see the two of them in action.”
In the fourth inning of their broadcast, designated hitter Alex Binelas homered to right field and Pay was on the play-by-play. After the half-inning was over, Tiedemann complemented Pay on the pacing and wording of the call.
Pay hopes to find a job in television someday. She’d originally considered sideline reporting, but has found a love for play-by-play and color commentary. Regardless, she plans to stay in baseball.
“I would spend every day at a baseball field if I could, and six days here is perfect because I love it,” she said.
Tiedemann, meanwhile, has no interest in television and plans to be in radio for the long haul. She learned the craft from her grandfather Bill Mercer, a longtime radio broadcaster in Texas. She appeared on her first broadcast at age 15 alongside her grandfather, who was calling a women’s college basketball game, and fell in love with the idea of pursuing it as a career. That took her from the University of Missouri to her first unpaid internship as a play-by-play and color analyst in the Alaska Baseball League. She worked for two years in the West Coast League in Oregon and then for a year as a broadcast assistant with the Triple-A St. Paul Saints in Minnesota before her first lead broadcasting job with Single-A Lexington in Kentucky in 2018.
Tiedemann picked up her habit of reading Red Barber’s book from her grandfather, who still calls her after Portland games offering broadcasting advice.
“I think the biggest thing he always says is, ‘Paint the picture,’” she said. “It might sound cliché, but everything stems from that.”
While her grandfather has been her biggest influence, Tiedemann has developed a strong friendship with Texas Rangers radio voice Eric Nadel, who she listened to growing up. Early in her career when she was in Oregon, Nadel reached out to Tiedemann to introduce himself and has been a source of support ever since. Knowing the industry can be different for women, Nadel connected Tiedemann with Suzyn Waldman, the longtime radio voice of the New York Yankees, and the first female color commentator in the majors. Among Tiedemann’s career highlights was a video text from Waldman on Opening Day in 2021 that she excitedly listened to at 4 a.m., jolting her husband awake.
The broadcasting ranks remain among the slowest-growing areas in American professional sports for women. Newman, who was on baseball’s first all-female booth in 2019, now does radio work for the Baltimore Orioles as well as MLB’s Apple TV broadcast. Jess Mendoza has become a national TV presence through ESPN.
“I think the whole, ‘If you can see it, you can be it,’ is a huge thing,” Tiedemann said. “It’s not this scary thing of you trying to blaze this path, it’s just go do your job to the best of your ability, listen back to your tapes the next day, and get better and foster those relationships. I think some people are still hesitant of hiring women because of the voice aspect and are used to hearing a man. I always say give me an inning and if you still hate me, fine. But hopefully I’ll show you a woman can do this job.”
As part of her support network, Tiedemann has formed close friendships with the handful of other female minor-league broadcasters past and present including Jill Gearin, Maura Sheridan and Emily Messina.
“Our really close relationship stemmed from blindly reaching out, ‘Hey I’m another woman doing this job,’” Tiedemann said. “There are fewer than five of us in all of this, so let’s stick together.”
Tiedemann is determined to grow the small numbers of women in the minors, and while that’s not why Pay was hired, it’s part of why her presence is important. While the minor-league life can be a grind with long bus trips and 16-hour days, Tiedemann has loved her time with the Sea Dogs.
“I’m very lucky to be in Portland,” Tiedemann said. “There are a lot of different teams and they treat their broadcasters very differently, and I’ve landed in a spot that is very unique in the way it treats the broadcast position with a lot of respect. I love the team, I love the fans, I love the city and working with the Red Sox has been really, really great. I could see myself here another 10 or 20 years because the end goal is a major-league job on radio. I know I still have to pay my dues in the minor-league life. But it is so fun. It’s exhausting, but I love coming to the ballpark and doing 50,000 things and then at the end of the day I get to put on my headset and call a game.”
Tiedemann did get a taste of the big-league life on her very first trip to Fenway Park in 2021. Through Nadel, she had befriended Fenway organist Josh Kantor, who brought her and her husband up to the press box. He introduced her to Red Sox radio legend Joe Castiglione and longtime multi-sport play-by-play man Sean McDonough and they invited her to stay for an inning to talk about the farm system and Portland prospects.
“It was the coolest thing ever, looking down on Fenway,” she said. “I still get goosebumps thinking about it. When I have a bad day, I just think of that. That’ll be a nice view someday.”
GO DEEPER
Melanie Newman and Suzie Cool made history; now comes the hard part
(Top photo: Jen McCaffrey)