Quotes from Jessica Mendoza

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.

I played baseball when I was younger, but the idea of the college scholarship enticed me to switch over to softball.

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 want to be in the booth any day - Sunday, Monday, Wednesday - it doesn't matter to me. I'm hooked. I love it.

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.

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.

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.

Own your differences and don't always try to fit in. The more unique you are, the more you stand out.

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?

When you're successful at something, you think that you need to continue to do what you're doing to get the same result. But I think in order to get better, sometimes you need some failures.

I don't filter things really.

Well, my mom actually taught me how to fish. We used to go when I was little, like 5 or 6 years old.

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.

That's what's beautiful about sports in general is you give someone a bat, a ball, a piece of sporting equipment and what it does to help them just be better people, 'to get out of whatever situation they might be in temporarily for that moment, to be whoever they want to be.

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.

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.

It should be common knowledge that women and men can talk about sports.

Instead of just being the person that's like: 'Gosh, that's cool that people are doing stuff and good luck. Do you need me to write a check? I can do that,' I've always just been very hands-on.

I'm a big Alex Cora fan, as far as aggressiveness, the things that he sees like pitch tipping. His eyes are really good.

To be honest my first memories are getting to know players. I remember being on the bus probably like 3, 4, 5 years old, and my dad would always say go sit with the players in the back.

I am a very honest person.

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.

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 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.'