A familiar name in the Baltimore Orioles broadcast booth: Melanie Newman became the first female broadcaster in franchise history to call play-by-play for a regular-season game.
She joins Geoff Arnold in the radio broadcast booth.
The list of female broadcasters for MLB teams is pretty short. There are four active female game broadcasters in Major League Baseball: Suzyn Waldman of the New York Yankees, Jessica Mendoza of ESPN, and Jenny Cavnar of the Colorado Rockies. Newman will become the fourth woman to handle play-by-play duties for a Major League Baseball game in 28 years following the debuts of Waldman (1992), Gayle Garnder (1993), and Cavnar (2018).
Newman joined the Orioles from the Salem Red Sox (High A; Carolina League), where she served as the lead broadcaster on baseball’s first all-female broadcast team. Newman previously held various roles with the Frisco RoughRiders (Class AA; Texas League) and the Mobile BayBears (Class AA; Southern League), including play-by-play announcer, reporter, and host. She has also covered Liberty University football as the team’s sideline reporter, and has reported various sports for the ACC Network, ESPN, GameDay Radio, and Major League Baseball Data Operations.
Photo courtesy Baltimore Orioles.
RELATED STORIES: Melanie Newman Joins Suzie Cool on Salem Red Sox’s 2019 Broadcasts; An Important Time for Women in MiLB Broadcasting; Suzie Cool to Appear on Select Salem Red Sox Broadcasts