ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast wound up with a smaller cast than usual this week, with their coverage of Sunday’s Philadelphia Phillies-San Francisco Giants game featuring just play-by-play broadcaster Matt Vasgersian and analyst Alex Rodriguez. Reporter Buster Olney was on a planned vacation, but analyst Jessica Mendoza was scheduled to work the game until a car accident intervened. Here’s more on that from USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale:
Jessica Mendoza’s car was rear-ended at full speed on Southern Cal freeway Friday and won’t be able to make #ESPN Sunday Night broadcast. She likely will return in a week.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 11, 2019
And here’s how Vasgersian and Rodriguez addressed it on the broadcast:
A transcript:
Vasgersian: “With that, we welcome you inside the broadcast booth. With Alex Rodriguez, I’m Matt Vasgersian. Jessica Mendoza not with us today, she was involved in a minor auto accident over the weekend. She’s feeling a lot better, and we’ll see her again next weekend. Buster Olney’s on vacation, so it’s just you and me today.”
Rodriguez: “Matty, we are the ones on vacation. This place is beautiful, the weather is perfect.”
Our thoughts go out to Mendoza while she recovers.
[Clippit]