Jessica Mendoza, Melanie Newman to Lead 1st-Ever ESPN All-Women's MLB Broadcast Team

Jessica Mendoza and Melanie Newman will serve as the first all-women's broadcast team for a nationally broadcast MLB game on Sept. 29. The featured teams haven't been announced by ESPN.

CNN Business' Frank Pallotta reported Tuesday it's also the first time ESPN will use an all-female announcing crew for an MLB, NBA or NFL regular-season or playoff game.

"Honestly, each earmark is just another page," Newman told Pallotta. "I feel fortunate to be the one handed this chance, it's our responsibility until there are no more firsts and it's just an even playing field of all qualified professionals who happen to look different."

Mendoza added it's "important to have more people represent the game of baseball."

In July, YouTube featured the first all-women's broadcast team for one of its MLB Game of the Week events featuring the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays: Newman, Heidi Watney, Lauren Gardner, Sarah Langs and Alanna Rizzo.

Watney told MLB.com's Savannah McCann:

"That's important for not just little girls to see, but little boys to see that it's normal, it doesn't matter your gender. It matters that you're passionate and [have] love for the sport, and your knowledge and your understanding of the sport. It's important, but for me, it's going to be another day at work. It's prepping for the Rays and O's."

Newman works for the Baltimore Orioles as both a play-by-play announcer and sideline reporter.

Mendoza won a 2004 Olympic gold medal in softball with Team USA. She's served as a color commentator for ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball since 2016.

"For young girls, women and Latinas, to hear a voice that represents them is so impactful for not only the sport to grow its audience, but to continue to broaden the opportunities for more young girls, women and Latinas to do the same," she told Pallotta.

ESPN will announce the game being covered by Mendoza and Newman at a later date. It'll be part of the network's focus on MLB's pennant races during the final days of the regular season.

"Representation absolutely matters," Newman told CNN Business. "The number of younger girls who have felt they couldn't be a fan of sports in general solely out of not seeing women in front still amazes me."

The NFL had its first all-women broadcast in 2018 (Andrea Kremer and Hannah Storm) and the NBA's Toronto Raptors featured all women (Meghan McPeak, Kia Nurse, Kayla Gray, Kate Beirness and Amy Audibert) for its coverage of a March game against the Denver Nuggets.