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question that’s been on the minds of most Mets
fans—Should manager Mickey Callaway keep his
job after the team failed to make the playoffs?—
Mendoza said she wouldn’t comment.
over a salad in the Red Sox press dining room,
Mendoza ponders something bigger than the Mets:
the future of the national pastime. She shares one
idea for speeding up baseball, whose excruciating
pace risks turning off younger, easily distracted
fans: a seven-inning game, like in softball. She
knows that’ll never fly, given the game’s reverence
for tradition. “I can keep saying it, though,” she
says. A 20-second pitch clock could be coming in a
few years, and Mendoza argues that taking too long
on the mound should carry serious consequences.
“Is it a warning, or is it a ball?” Mendoza says.
“ Because if it’s a ball, dudes are going to throw.”
Baseball, in Mendoza’s view, could use a few
more characters. So if a player wants to celebrate a
home run with a prodigious bat flip, he shouldn’t
have to worry about a beaning. “Young people want
to relate to these guys,” she says. “And if everyone
looks and acts the same, there’s no relatability.”
Nothing can halt baseball griping quite like
a thrilling October postseason. Mendoza’s most
intrigued by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who’ve
now clinched seven straight division champion-
ships but still haven’t won a World Series since
- The Dodgers have sneakily assembled a title-
starved dynasty, and the pitcher of the decade,
Clayton Kershaw—who’s suffered high-profile
postseason letdowns during this stretch—is argu-
ably the third-best pitcher in L.A.’s rotation. That
bodes well for the team in blue.
Back at Fenway this summer, the Red Sox–
Dodgers game drags on for 12 innings, finally end-
ing at 12:50 a.m.—a cool 5-hour, 40-minute affair.
“I feel like I got tired in the 10th,” Mendoza says
while walking out of the park. “And then you get
kind of punch-drunk.” She returns to the hotel past
1 a.m. and is up for a 6 a.m. flight home to Bend,
Ore., where she has just moved with her husband
and two boys, who are 10 and 6. She’ll get some
rest, catch up with her family and start prepping for
next week’s game. Then, it’s back to Disneyland.
‘Is it a
warning,
or is it
a ball?
Because if
it’s a ball,
dudes are
going to
t h row.’
JESSICA MENDOZA,
on penalties to
enforce proposed
time limits for
pitchers, aimed
at speeding up
baseball
PHIL ELLSWORTH—ESPN IMAGES
