Oh Good God

AAAHHHH!!!!

If you're a Dodgers fan in LA, run. Jeanne Zelasko is trying to get the play-by-play spot for the Dodgers. Now, she's a perfectly fine reporter (having worked in baseball, football, NASCAR), but is she really ready to sit down and take on the analysis of one sport? It's one thing to be spoon-fed a script on a teleprompter during a pre-game show, but it's an entirely different situation having to analyze off the cuff. And honestly, she wasn't that interesting during the pre-game shows.

The article mentions that her being a woman is a hinderance. I have no doubt that it is, but sometimes I wonder how much it really has to do with her simply being a woman. I have no problem with a woman analyst for baseball, but I have a problem with a woman analyst (I realize the name of the job is "play-by-play", but she's still going to have to make some sort of educated statement on what just happened -- by the way, is play-by-play just for radio or does it include television as well?) who doesn't know what she's talking about, the same as I have a problem when half the guys on ESPN open their mouths. I think that's what networks worry about as well, and knowing men that have played baseball, they choose them first. Granted, this does not mean that a woman doesn't understand the sport (I know some who do), and it does indicate that a woman has a harder time getting a job in the industry. But I still wonder how much a woman not getting a job such as this is due to sexism versus a practical desire for baseball knowledge and men being the obvious choice due to the fact that the sport is simply played by men. Then again, if we never give a woman the opportunity, the problem is never solved, is it? Are we being too sensitive or not sensitive enough? I guess it depends on the situation, and we probably won't know unless we get inside the head of whoever hires the play-by-play people.

Regardless, Zelasko is just a bad idea.