1993: Female Sportscaster Gayle Gardner Presents MLB Play-By-Play
August 3, 2020
| By TV WW
On this day in 1993, female sportscaster Gayle Gardner became the first woman to present televised play-by-play for a Major League baseball game. The game, between the Colorado Rockies and the Cincinnati Reds, was broadcast on Denver's KWGN-TV.
Gardner is considered a broadcasting pioneer for her accomplishments in sports broadcasting. After serving as an anchor for ESPN's SportsCenter for three years, Gardner jumped to NBC Sports where she anchored NBC's New Year's Day college football coverage. She also did a stint on NFL Live! with Bob Costas; co-hosted NBC's pre-game game-of-the-week show, Major League Baseball: An Inside Look with Marv Albert, Len Berman, Bryant Gumbel and Bill Macatee; and co-hosted NBC's coverage of the 1988 and 1995 Summer Olympics.
Gardner chalked up another sports television first in 1989, when she became the first woman to regularly host MLB games for a major television network (NBC).