Cavnar visits her history in Cooperstown
When Athletics announcer Jenny Cavnar recently visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum with three generations of her family in tow, she blended in with many others that day.
Traveling to Cooperstown on Aug. 11 with her mom, dad, brother, husband and two children, Cavnar said the side trip had special significance.
“My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and when we talked about what they might want to do, we don’t want to party, we don’t want any of those things. I looked at the schedule and I said, ‘Well, the Athletics are playing in Boston. Would you want to go?’ And they said yes to Fenway,” Cavnar said. “And my mom actually brought up the idea. She said, ‘If we’re going to be on the East Coast,’ – they live in Colorado and don’t often come this way – ‘I’d really love to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame.’ So, it was her idea, and we made it work. And they’ve never been here before.
“I’ve been a couple of different times for work, but really just being here, seeing baseball through all of their eyes. Three generations here together, you all rooting for different teams as we grew up, and my dad being a longtime baseball coach. It’s really special to share and look through the artifacts and enjoy the stories and the history of the game.”
Terms such as “trailblazer” and “inspiring” have been used to describe Cavnar as she has been successful in a male-dominated field. Now in her third season as a play-by-play announcer for the Athletics on NBC Sports California, in 2024 she became the first female primary play-by-play voice in big league history. This will be her 20th season covering Major League Baseball.
Prior to the A’s, Cavnar worked for the Colorado Rockies (2012-2023), where she also made baseball history in 2018 as the first woman to call play-by-play for a Major League Baseball game in 25 years, and in 2015, as the first woman to provide analysis for a series of National League games in the radio booth. Cavnar can often be heard as a voice on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM throughout the regular season and postseason coverage.
“I’m so grateful for the women who came before me to give this opportunity for our generation to have these jobs and pursue the careers we want to,” Cavnar said. “I think the idea is they hold the door open, and we’re trying to open it a little further. And I’m here to hold it open for whoever’s going to plow through it, and that next generation will plow through it, and they won’t have to fight for jobs. There will be opportunities for them.
“I look around this game, having been in it for 20 years now. I see from the television side of baseball. I see female producers, female directors, female camera operators, female graphics operators. I can go on. I have now seen a female umpire in the game thanks to Jen Pawol. I have seen a female coach. I have now seen the Women’s Pro Baseball League. It’s 20 years of my eyes really looking for other women in the game. I now see them, and I don’t have to look for them as hard.”
Among the artifacts Cavnar saw on this trip were a number of items from her career. Her 2024 credential, headset and talk box from Opening Day were donated to the Museum’s permanent collection.
“For years, having covered players who do historic things in this game, and then the Hall comes calling. As a reporter, you’re always curious, like, what’s the Hall of Fame want? What are they taking? What are you going to give up?” Cavnar said. “And then to have the Hall call and ask my boss what they can take from that first game, like really a goosebump moment of realizing what’s going on in the historical place that this has in baseball, and to be a part of it is beyond special.
“It makes me think of one of my favorite movies when I was a kid, A League of Their Own, and they all come back at the end and they’re walking through the women in baseball exhibit with their children and grandchildren. This is the fast-forward moment of that. It’s amazing that what we did in this game will be here forever.”
Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
