Double-A Red Sox broadcaster adds new role to resume -- mom
Benjamin Hill
@BensBizIf you’re in the live broadcast business, embarrassing on-air moments come with the territory. Emma Tiedemann -- voice of the Portland Sea Dogs -- endured one last Aug. 10, just after reliever Ryan Miller came on to pitch the top of the seventh inning for Portland.
Tiedemann, speaking during an interview on MiLB.com’s The Show Before the Show podcast, further set the scene:
"We had just gotten back from a road trip to Bowie. [Broadcast partner] Rylee [Pay] was doing play-by-play and I was doing color. … I was gonna say, '[Miller] tossed two shutout innings with three strikeouts' or something [in his last appearance]. All that came out was 'Bowie.' And Rylee, I could see her in the corner of my eye just look at me. And just be like, 'Are you OK?'"
So how did this seemingly baffling faux pas occur? Tiedemann sums it up in two words: pregnancy brain. The previous month, she learned she was expecting.
"In full Minor League fashion, I did find out that I was pregnant in Manchester, New Hampshire," said Tiedemann. It was Independence Day weekend, and the Sea Dogs were in the midst of a series against the Fisher Cats. "Then I had to come back here to Portland and just wrap my mind around everything and then start buying copious amounts of ginger ale because I had really bad morning sickness. And I was still trying to play everything close to the vest, as you do early on in pregnancies."
Tiedemann navigated this unprecedented terrain over the second half of the 2023 season and is preparing for an even more memorable 2024. One month ago, she and husband Jesse Scaglion, the Sea Dogs' director of ticket operations, welcomed daughter Lucy Ruth into the world.
Lucy will be approximately 5 weeks old when the Sea Dogs kick off their season on April 5 in Portland. For Tiedemann, that means this year’s Opening Day jitters will be, well, even more jittery.
"I would say intimidating, overwhelming, all of the emotions that, after you’ve had a baby, hormones bring you," she said. "But we knew it was coming, so we’ve talked a lot about our plan and our schedule."
Tiedemann was hired by Boston's Double-A Eastern League affiliate in 2020, following two seasons calling games for the Single-A Lexington Legends. It was there that she met Scaglion, then the Legends director of corporate sales. He landed his current job with the Sea Dogs in 2021, once again making them colleagues.
"We started dating in the baseball life," Scaglion said. "We know what each other’s going through. … If someone’s burned out in the middle of July, we get it. We are able to fill that for each other and help provide solutions. So it’s worked out really well for us so far, four or five years into it."
Tiedemann has been spending as much time with Lucy as possible, "taking every second" of her parental leave. After her leave ends, her husband’s will begin, and in this scenario, road trips will become family affairs.
"It’s tough to still think about the fact that I do have to leave [Lucy] eventually, because I’ve loved seeing her grow these last couple of weeks," Tiedemann said. "I think, in a few years when she’s at most of the Eastern League ballparks, if not a lot of Minor League ballparks in general, we’ll look back and think, 'Hey, that’s a pretty cool way to start your life, going to all these ballparks.'"
When Tiedemann was hired by the Legends in 2018 following stints in various summer collegiate and independent leagues, she was one of only two female broadcasters in Minor League Baseball. Last year, she and Pay combined in Portland to form the second all-female broadcast booth in Minor League history. Now entering her first season as a working mother, she realizes her status as a trailblazer has added importance. As far as having that word attached to her name, she says she’s "still getting used to it."
"I’m still a person that just wants to broadcast and to be the best broadcaster,” she elaborated. "Not, 'Oh, she’s good for a female broadcaster. She’s half-decent.' … Having that title [of trailblazer] attached to me, I know there’s extra weight to it, especially now having a daughter of my own. [I’ll] wear it with a little more pride these days."
"I’ve seen [Emma’s] struggle in real time," added Scaglion. "Like, 'I want to promote this for women, I want to bring up the next generation of women. But sometimes I just want to go in my room and watch TV by myself.' Emma has done such a great job of trying to help mentor the next generation of female broadcasters and to bring awareness to bring more into the sport."
Tiedemann, for her part, draws inspiration from those who have come before her.
"Jenny Cavnar does it with two kids and she’s now the voice of the A’s," she said. "It’s now extra special for me to see a mom of two young kids achieve that, so I know it’s possible. A lot of women in the industry and outside of it, they’ve reached out [to me] saying, 'Thank you for posting a little bit about it and posting that you’re still broadcasting because it’s showing that we can do it too.'"
Tiedemann will be back in the booth soon enough, ready for a season filled with challenges old and new. In the meantime, she’ll be doing a new form of play-by-play.
"Just narrating our day-to-day lives," she said. "Blowouts, diapers and naps."