Female Broadcast Team To Make Red Sox History At Fenway Park

Portland Sea Dogs broadcasters Emma Tiedemann and Rylee Pay are set to knock one out of the park when they step up to the booth for the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Monday night.

Tiedemann and Pay will join Red Sox voice Dave O’Brien and analyst Kevin Youkilis in the NESN booth for the second game of the day-night Red Sox-Blue Jays doubleheader for the Women’s Celebration game.

The duo will work alongside O’Brien and Youkikis in the booth for the entirety of the game but will take over the play-by-play in the middle three innings. Even though Tiedemann and Pay have been calling games in Portland for two seasons, they are looking forward to working with O’Brien and Youkilis in the booth.

“I think unanimously, as a broadcaster, no matter what level you’re at, you’re always listening for other broadcasters and how they do things,” Pay told NESN.com. “Taking different pieces of how they phrase different plays and different things they use, things that you like, and kind of pick their brain and always just having that kind of student of the game mentality.”

“I think just being able to sit next to a seasoned veteran like Dave O’Brien, it’s going to be hard not to learn at least a few things from him,” Tiedemann added. “That doesn’t include just on the air. It’s how he conducts himself off the air as well in his prep.”

The pair spent a day with Red Sox coordinating producer Amy Johnson touring the NESN truck and booth, and Tiedemann took the opportunity to pick O’Brien’s brain on how he keeps his book and scorecard.

Tiedemann and Pay are not traditional broadcasters that baseball fans may be used to hearing, with one voice dominating the play-by-play and the other offering opinions and analysis.

“We kind of split it up,” Tiedemann explained. “I’ll do six innings of play-by-play, Rylee is the analyst, and then in the middle three innings, we switch. Rylee does the middle three play-by-play. Whenever the team is on the road, typically, I’m the one that’s traveling, and I just do play-by-play and everything solo. Rylee is in Portland producing on the radio station.”

“I think a big part of our broadcast is just trying to keep it as authentic on the air as we are off the air,” Pay added. “We try and really make sure that our relationship and friendship that we have when we’re not on a broadcast is shown for people listening.

“It makes it more entertaining. We try and incorporate some humor and just really keep it authentic to who we are, and those conversations, referencing stats and all that in the back end of everything for quality baseball broadcast. But also making it feel like you’re just watching a game with us.”

Tiedemann and Pay are the third female team to break into major league baseball this season when they call the Red Sox game on Monday. Jenny Cavnar and Julia Morales called a game between the Oakland Athletics and Houston Astros in May. Beth Mowins, Elise Menaker, and Taylor McGregor recently operated the Chicago Cubs’ broadcast.