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Jessica Mendoza Will Make Baseball History at Tonight’s Yankees-Astros Playoff Game

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35th Annual Salute To Women In Sports - Arrivals
Softbal player Jessica Mendoza attends the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 35th Annual Salute to Women In Sports awards, a celebration and a fundraiser to ensure more girls and women have access to sports, at Cipriani Wall Street on October 15, 2014 in New York City.Michael Loccisano—Getty Images
By Eliana Dockterman

Former softball slugger Jessica Mendoza will become the first woman in history to broadcast a national televised postseason MLB game on Tuesday when the New York Yankees take on the Houston Astros on ESPN.

Mendoza, a two-time Olympic medalist, retired from softball last year. She joined Dan Shulman and John Kirk as a regular analyst on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball in September. She also replaced Curt Schilling, who led the show, after he appeared to compare Muslims to Nazis on Twitter.

Mendoza, who was a four-time first-team All-American softball player at Stanford from 1999 to 2002, has made history before. In August, she became the first women in the booth for an ESPN MLB broadcast during a game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Mendoza has received an outpouring of support from baseball fans on Twitter eager to hear her take on the evening’s game.

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Write to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com