Who is Jessica Mendoza? ESPN's budding baseball broadcasting star

So maybe you haven't been paying a lot of attention to Major League Baseball (what's wrong with you?) down the stretch this season, and you checked in to ESPN's broadcast of the first postseason game Tuesday night between the New York Yankees and Houston Astros.

You might have found yourself asking who is the female voice providing stellar analysis and what is her background?

[Related: We ranked all 25 possible World Series matchups.]

She is Jessica Mendoza, a two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner with Team USA in softball and one of the best players in the history of the sport. She made her debut in the booth during a baseball game in August and did so well she earned a seat on Sunday Night Baseball and now covering the playoffs.

Mendoza was a four-time first-team All-American at Stanford. She retired from softball last year and was chosen to replace Curt Schilling by ESPN when he was suspended for an inappropriate tweets comparing Muslim extremists to the Nazi Party.

[Related: Check out our look at the National League Wild Card game.]

She already has plenty of fans, based on early reaction on Twitter to her first playoff game. And, predictably, there are a few nitwits who can't seem to find anything wrong with her doing the game other than the fact she is female.

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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kyle.ringo@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo