Yesterday, history was made at Fenway Park – not on the field, but in the commentary booth. Emma Tiedemann and Rylee Pay commentated on the Red Sox and Blue Jays game yesterday. It was the first time that a female duo commentated on a Sox game in this historic park.
Tiedemann moved to GBH All in all Host Arun Rath tells more about this exciting achievement. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: First of all, to be clear, this isn’t the first time you or Rylee have commentated on a Sox game. Were you alone?
Emma Tiedemann: Yes. We’ve been commentating on Portland Sea Dogs games in Maine for two seasons now, so this is the first time we’ve commentated on a Red Sox game together.
Advice: Was it also your first Red Sox game? Have you ever commentated on a Red Sox game?
Tiedemann: Yes yes.
Advice: The first thing. All in all, that must seem huge to you, right?
Tiedemann: Yeah. I mean, on a deeper level, it was just our first major league game ever – our MLB debut, if you will. It’s still an absolutely surreal feeling. I still pinch myself today because it actually happened last night.
Advice: So, first of all, what was going through your mind leading up to it? What was going through your mind leading up to it because it was your first major league game and you were playing it in a historic way?
Tiedemann: There were a lot of different thoughts. We were very nervous. Of course, the week before was also due to the media hype that we were doing our first major league game as commentators and then having to coordinate the historic part – and on top of that, we commentated on six Sea Dogs games in Portland last week and had to prepare for those games as well.
You know, we didn’t have a lot of free time to really focus on the monumental aspect of the moment. But I think it all really hit home when we sat at the NESN booth yesterday and put the headphones on for the first time.
Advice: And then you’re doing a very demanding job at that moment. Does that take away your nervousness when you’re in that moment?
Tiedemann: Absolutely. You know, I think in all the years I’ve been practicing in baseball booths all over the country, I’ve always focused on one thing: Once you put the headset on, that’s your job. You’re focused on the game – you’re not really checking social media, you’re not really looking at your phone. You’re just living in the moment, and I think that’s been really helpful.
You put the headset on, put the phone down, and just call a baseball game. And that’s exactly what we did.
Advice: You mentioned the years of work in broadcasting that have brought you to this point. Tell us more about your path here. How did you get to this point?
Tiedemann: Well, it started when I was 15 years old. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and my grandfather was a sportscaster. He did commentary on the Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys, Chicago White Sox, and World Class Championship Wrestling games.
One day he was commentating on a women’s basketball game and had an extra headset with him. I happened to be there just to write the score for him. He said, “Hey, how about you try doing a game report and see if you like it?” And the rest is history.
I mean, I absolutely fell in love with it. You have to think quickly and constantly analyze the things that are happening in front of you. And then there’s the research – all the background research you do before every game. So I was hooked.
I continued to work as an announcer throughout high school and college. In 2014, I got my first job in baseball in Palmer, Alaska, and I’ve been working in baseball ever since. It’s taken me from Alaska to Oregon to Lexington, Kentucky to St. Paul, Minnesota, and now Portland, Maine.
Advice: I would also like to stress – simply because I am of course a radio person and love radio – that this is a real art that you have to learn. And you understood it straight away?
Tiedemann: I do. Everything about it – you know, of course there was a televised game on NESN last night, but my dream is to be on the radio. I really have no ambitions to be on TV. Doing a game on the radio is very special to me, especially in baseball.
There’s something nostalgic about it, too. But I just love the extra challenge that baseball games on the radio provide. (We’re) not only painting a picture of what’s happening in front of your eyes, but we’re letting the game breathe a little bit so your listeners can get an idea of what the stadium sounds like and what the ambient noise is like.
And you know, all those little nuances on the radio absolutely captivated me as a 15-year-old. I don’t know if many people can say that these days with social media and television. But yes, radio captivated me from the beginning.
Advice: You come from radio, but last night there was a TV show and that’s quite a challenge for you. I know from personal experience that it’s not easy to switch from one to the other. What was it like on a TV show?
Tiedemann: It was an interesting and pretty difficult turnaround. Rylee and I talked about it afterward. You know, that was Rylee’s first televised game ever. I had done a couple of televised games with the Worcester Red Sox, but not a lot of experience.
I think every one of us got a sense after the first inning was over with game commentary that we didn’t have to say that a right-handed pitcher was going up against a left-handed pitcher, and we didn’t have to say the count and the score all the time. All of those things that we focus on so much on the radio, we can take a back seat and focus on other things that fans didn’t necessarily get to see on the TV broadcast.
We made spontaneous adjustments and looked at what worked and what didn’t.
Advice: So for a first television experience it was pretty good.
Tiedemann: Oh yeah. You know, NESN is incredible. Their coordinating producer, Amy Johnson, was incredible in the truck setting the whole thing up and then really walking us through it all because, you know, there’s a lot to read. As you heard last night – whether you’re announcing a home run like Rylee did and it’s an Audi sponsorship – little things like that that come out to break.
Advice: When it was over and the long day came to an end, did it really hit you?
Tiedemann: Yes. I think when the lights went down at Fenway Park, the stadium was dark, and after a few more interviews that Rylee and I did after the game, it was pretty special. My husband and daughter came to the locker room, and as we all walked out of Fenway Park together, we were like, “Wow, this really happened. We commentated on a major league baseball game. We’re in the Red Sox history books.”
After a very long day at the ballpark yesterday, we finally got it.
