Dear Gossips,

Tonight is Major League Baseball opening night, baseball is back! Here in Toronto, the Blue Jays home opener is on Friday, which means that basically, for the next six months, baseball will be on pretty much every day in my house. This is not an exaggeration – Jacek, my husband, watches every single game, when he can’t be home, the DVR is always set.

Since the Jays are such a presence in our home for six months of the year, Hazel Mae’s voice is the soundtrack of our summers. She is the field-level reporter for the Toronto Blue Jays, one of the best sports reporters in Canadian broadcasting history, a f-cking LEGEND. She won the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Jack Graney Award last year and this year she will be the recipient of the Gordon Sinclair Award for Broadcast Journalism at the Canadian Screen Awards.

It was also just announced, in time for baseball, that her memoir, Before I Let You Go, will be released in November, after the season is over, obviously, because Hazel will be occupied for the next six months on the field.

This is the Show Your Work of a woman who has succeeded in a male-dominated industry, one of the most respected and beloved journalists in our country – Hazel stays ready, stays sharp, and is always serving, in her signature jumpsuit, of course.

Or a shift dress. Or a pantsuit. In seemingly every colour. Hazel has been a familiar and reliable presence on television, this reaction is the visual representation of how so many of us feel about her.

Hats off to the incomparable and iconic Hazel Mae.

I have already, shamelessly, asked for an advance copy and pre-ordered her book which you can do here.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Photo credits: HarperCollins Canada

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