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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays throws water on Bo Bichette as he is interviewed by Hazel Mae following the team’s victory against the Cincinnati Reds at Rogers Centre in May, 2022.Cole Burston/Getty Images
Hazel Mae’s workday starts with meetings in the morning and ends late at night – sometimes only after she has been doused with Gatorade and sprayed with beer and champagne.
After the Toronto Blue Jays clinched the American League championship last week, she waded into a gale-force celebration with a ball cap pulled down tight on her head. With years of experience, Sportsnet’s on-field Blue Jays reporter doesn’t bother wearing a poncho or a raincoat. Her clothes get soaked anyway.
Ms. Mae relishes her role as part of the network’s broadcast team. Over the past 10 years, she has become its most valuable player.
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Mae blocks out five weeks to cover the major league playoffs each fall.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
She is a blur as she goes about her duties – dashing between dugouts to interview coaches, managers and players, writing her own scripts and providing dispatches from the field during games. She is so consumed with work at times, she confesses, that she forgets to eat.
“She works very hard,” said Buck Martinez, the former Blue Jays catcher and manager who is now the team’s colour analyst. “She is fun to work with and does a great job. She digs for the latest and greatest information.”
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Each fall, Ms. Mae blocks out five weeks to cover the major league playoffs. She is required to do it whether the Blue Jays make it or not.
Last year, they didn’t. In three of the four preceding seasons, they were knocked out of the wild-card round without winning a single contest.
In most years, at any given point in the postseason, she is travelling between two U.S. cities to provide updates for viewers across Canada.
This year is different. Toronto won the American League championship to reach the World Series for the first time in 32 years. In a happy coincidence, Sportsnet also acquired the World Series broadcast rights from Major League Baseball.
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Mae interviews Guerrero Jr. after the Jays won Game 6 of the ALCS against the Seattle Mariners.Nick Turchiaro/Imagn Images
“It’s actually sort of surreal,” Ms. Mae said on Friday before the first game in the best-of-seven matchup between the Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The teams are now tied with one victory each. (The series will move to Los Angeles for Games 3, 4 and 5 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.)
“It almost doesn’t seem like it’s even postseason to me,” Ms. Mae added.
“I was at home for Thanksgiving for the first time in a decade. I’m waking up in my own bed.”
Toronto reached the American League Championship Series in 2015 and 2016 but lost on both occasions. Fans are starved for success. Last season, the team finished last in the American League East division.
“It’s a grind, but I am having fun,” Ms. Mae said. “It is a remarkable story when a team goes from last to first and is one of the final two standing.”
She was born in the Philippines to parents who immigrated to Canada in the early 1970s, when she was a child. She grew up in Toronto and became a huge Blue Jays fan.
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Her father learned to speak English watching Maple Leafs games on television. Hockey helped him chat with co-workers around the water cooler and brought him a sense of belonging.
Her father and mother wanted her to become a doctor or a lawyer, but she decided to pursue a career in broadcasting instead. Her father thought she was making a preposterous decision.
“He didn’t think me having something to do with sports would work,” Ms. Mae said.
It did.
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Mae scurries away as Guerrero Jr. douses Alejandro Kirk with a bucket of water during a television interview after the Jays defeated the Houston Astros in Toronto in June, 2023.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
After she finished university, Ms. Mae began to carve out a formidable niche. This is her second time at Sportsnet after an original stint that began in 2001.
She returned to Toronto in 2011 after working out of Boston for NESN, the primary broadcaster of Red Sox and Bruins games. In 2008, she helped launch the MLB Network in New York.
“They called my agent and said they wanted me to host a 24-hour baseball channel,” Ms. Mae recalled. “I mean, I thought it would never work. Who watches baseball 24 hours a day?”
A lot of people, it turns out. And that foreshadowed her return to Toronto.
“We are fortunate to have her,” Mark Shapiro, the president of the Blue Jays, said. The club is owned by Rogers Communications, and Sportsnet is operated by Rogers Sports & Media. “She clearly has in-depth knowledge of the game and has earned the trust of the clubhouse, which can be a very unforgiving place.
“She is one of the best in the business.”
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When she started, there were few women in similar positions that she could look to as role models. Now she has become one.
“As a woman I feel there is extra pressure on me to get things right,” she said. “There are a lot of naysayers, and I don’t want to make an error that proves them right.
“It’s crazy that after so many years that it still grinds on me, but it does. When you work with a crew like I do, you don’t want to be the weakest link. That is my biggest fear.”
There is little chance anyone thinks that.
“She works her tail off,” said Joe Siddall, a former major league catcher and analyst, now in his 11th season with Sportsnet. “She is [a] master at building relationships by talking to key coaches and players all of the time.
“Everything she does is good. She is a great teammate.”
She used to buy front-row tickets to Blue Jays games for her parents, but they weren’t all that keen on going.
“If they were here in person, they couldn’t watch me on TV,” Ms. Mae said. “My mother is the only one now who thinks I’m a big deal.”
Hardly.
“Hazel is awesome,” Bo Bichette, Toronto’s all-star shortstop, said. As soon as he was asked about her, his face lit up with a smile.
“She is such a professional. We have a great relationship. There is a lot of trust between us. I think she looks at all of us like we’re her kids.”
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Mae at the Rogers Centre in 2022. Over the past 10 years, she has become the Blue Jays’ MVP.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
