Jenny Cavnar continues to climb the broadcasting ranks, and this time, she’s making historical past in her new gig because the Oakland A’s play-by-play announcer.
The A’s introduced Cavnar’s hiring Tuesday, making her the primary feminine main play-by-play voice in MLB historical past.
“It’s a dream come true to hitch the published group for the Oakland A’s and their wealthy baseball historical past,” Cavnar mentioned in an announcement. “Rising up the daughter of a baseball coach, I’ve cherished the sport from a younger age, together with the tales, historical past, and relationships the sport offers.”
Cavnar will work alongside NBC Sports activities California coloration commentator Dallas Braden, who welcomed her to the published sales space in a video on social media.
A pricey buddy, a real skilled & Main League Baseballs first feminine PxP broadcaster….
Welcome to the City @jennycavnar I can’t wait to get it goin’ homie! pic.twitter.com/wOZYGsS3Rn
— Dallas Braden (@DALLASBRADEN209) February 13, 2024
Cavnar heads to Oakland after working as a Colorado Rockies reporter, backup play-by-play announcer and pregame and postgame host over the previous 12 years.
In April 2018, she turned the primary girl in 25 years to name TV play-by-play for an MLB recreation when the Rockies hosted the San Diego Padres. It was a becoming first recreation for her to name since Cavnar beforehand lined the San Diego Padres as a reporter and anchor for practically 5 years.
“I met Jenny greater than a dozen years in the past by a mutual buddy,” A’s pre- and post-game host Brodie Brazil informed The Athletic. “Adopted her trajectory ever since, and it was all the time fairly clear she’d arrive at a possibility like this. After I knew she was interviewing, I might have been disenchanted if NBC didn’t convey her on. She’ll do nice work and be nicely acquired — not solely calling video games … but additionally carrying Dallas Braden.”
Cavnar additionally calls males’s and ladies’s school basketball and has beforehand lined the Anaheim Geese and San Diego State College athletics.
Braden on teaming up with Cavnar
This will likely be Cavnar and Braden’s first time within the sales space collectively, however the two have been shut pals for a few years. Cavnar’s husband, former White Sox’s minor-league right-hander Steven Spurgeon, was considered one of Braden’s closest pals and teammate on a journey group in highschool. Braden says Cavnar’s data of the sport is elite.
“I all the time inform (Spurgeon), man, I can’t look forward to us to hang around as a result of I can lastly speak baseball. He’s like, I performed professionally, however I inform him you don’t know s— about baseball however your spouse, she and I can speak ball,” Braden informed The Athletic with fun.
When requested to check Cavnar to every other broadcaster on the market, he described her as a “considered one of one.”
“That is the primary feminine play-by-play broadcaster in Main League Baseball historical past,” he mentioned. “So I might be mendacity to you and I might be making s— up if I had been to inform you that she seems like someone as a result of she doesn’t, as a result of there’s no person like her. She’s Jenny.”
Braden admits he was somewhat biased towards his buddy through the audition course of but additionally says that realizing her for so long as he has, he’s seen how her work ethic and professionalism come into play with a broadcast.
“(Her preparation) was nothing I used to be ever involved with, or was interested in as a result of I knew what sort {of professional} she was, and I knew how good at her job she was,” Braden mentioned, noting the work Cavnar has carried out asserting basketball, in addition to baseball.
Braden says he and Cavnar have had conversations in regards to the group relationship again to the top of final season. He is aware of she’ll have a troublesome activity forward attempting to get to know the group earlier than Opening Day however hopes that followers will likely be affected person. She’ll additionally have the ability to lean on the expertise Braden and the A’s radio broadcast sales space of longtime veterans Ken Korach, Vince Cotroneo and Johnny Doskow have with the A’s group.
“I can think about how troublesome it’s coming into a spot that you’re unfamiliar with, and also you’re being requested to be the conduit between a corporation and its fan base,” he mentioned. “Do not forget that she’s attempting to do a job that comes with 50-plus years of background historical past, and she or he’s attempting to be taught all of that on the fly.
“I feel with the best way that she prepares, she’s going to place herself in a terrific place to succeed.”
The work begins this spring for the A’s new TV broadcast crew, and for Braden, it’s a dream come true.
“For me, it’s a type of moments the place this doesn’t occur ever that you simply get to work with considered one of your greatest pals calling the sport that you simply love,” he mentioned. “These relationships develop when you may have that chance, however her and I have already got this unbelievable friendship that we now get to faucet into at work.”
(Photograph: Sam Wasson / Getty Pictures)