 Yes, we're here. Welcome to another edition, Meredith Marachovitz, alongside Ian Joy. Ian, I was so much looking forward to this considering you've been at Yes Network since 2015. We met briefly at a Yankees game, but this is the first time I have the opportunity to actually have a conversation with you. I couldn't think of a better time and a better place to be meeting you. I think we're probably 3,000, 3.5,000 miles apart. I mean, this is crazy, but what a pleasure. It's great to meet you. Your voice is so recognizable, Meredith. Every time I'm in New York, I hear your voice. I don't know if that's good or bad. Are they in your, it's the voice in your dreams or in your nightmare? It's in my dreams, and I hear it everywhere I go, because of course, whenever I'm following the Yankees, the majority of the time it's always on YouTube, watching clips here and there, and you're always there. So I love it. So I'm so familiar to your voice, of course, through the network as well. But every time I'm in my room, if I'm just got the game on or I've got the network on, I always hear your voice. And it's one of those most recognizable voices in the whole of sports, just so you know that. I will keep that in mind. Now, I know you're obviously ingrained into the soccer aspect of sports, but are you a big baseball fan as well, or have you become a big baseball fan? I have, yeah. Well, I've been trying to follow as much as I can, obviously, over the last four or five years since I've been at the network. But beforehand, it was 2011, it was, when I first started to watch baseball, I was living in St. Louis, and of course, St. Louis, big baseball town, and at that time, they had a very successful team as well. So I was there through the World Series, and I managed to go in and actually, I never had a ticket, but I managed to sneak in for the final two innings of the game in the World Series, game seven, and I managed to sneak into the stadium, believe it or not. There was a rush, a stampede, and I went straight in, and I managed to get in. So yeah, that was my first sort of fall in love with the sport of baseball. That's wild. I imagine because you played soccer for so long since you were a little kid, you probably never even really played baseball, right? No. I mean, growing up in Europe, I mean, I was born, obviously, in San Diego. Can you tell by the accent? But I grew up in Scotland, and of course, over there, it's basically soccer or nothing. You have rugby, you have cricket, you have a few other sports, but more American sports are starting to appear in Europe. But baseball is obviously being a little bit behind, and last year to see you guys over in London, that was great for someone like me to see, because there's a lot of baseball fans over there. It was awesome for us to just covering it, and the players really seemed to enjoy it. Now, I have to tell you, I was in Scotland this off season. It was my second trip there. Beautiful country. I absolutely love it. I had a wonderful time. Where did you go to? I was in Edinburgh. Yeah, so I grew up just outside of Edinburgh. That was my city. So basically, it was on my doorstep. Everything was there. The beautiful castle. I mean, it was just a fantastic place to grow up. My parents still live there now. So next time you go, you got to let us know so you can come and grab some dinner with my parents. A hundred percent. I would love to do that. Now, I know you're on the West Coast right now. So what drew you to California, and what do you love about California? Well, I know you're in Florida now, right? So I was originally in Florida. I started off in Miami in my broadcasting career after I finished as a pro soccer player. And then I came over to Fox in Los Angeles. That's what brought me over because of soccer. I played in Germany for five years, and they got the broadcast and rights to the German league. So I've been here for five years now. And now that's coming to an end. I'll be moving to the East Coast. I've always wanted to be around the New York area. So for me, it's it's a dream to get over there. But yeah, it's been it's been an interesting five years. I love California, obviously, being born here. It was always somewhat of a home. So I always wanted to spend a lot of time here. It happened a lot earlier in my career than I expected. But I've loved every minute of it. Have you spent much time out in California? I spent a lot of time in California, so much so that people sometimes think that I'm from California. I'm not. I'm an East Coaster all the way. My brother used to live in Santa Monica. He no longer lives there. But one of my first big jobs was for Fox Sports out in Los Angeles at their network center. I was an intern slash production assistant for the pregame baseball show at the time with Genies Alaska and Kevin Kennedy. So that was my first foray into big broadcasting. And I was going to school in Philadelphia at the time. And I drove cross country with essentially nowhere to live, found a place and almost stayed out in California. But figured I'd honor that volleyball scholarship and come back to the East Coast. It's kind of amazing. I actually knew that about you, Meredith, as well. I knew your journey because, of course, working at the network, I like to know everybody inside out before I get a chance to meet them or talk to them. And I knew that about you, that you'd been at Fox Sports. You spent a few months here and you'd enjoyed it. And of course, you got your step into baseball pretty quickly as well. That's been an amazing step and process for you. Did that happen quicker than you expected getting into the clubhouse and being a clubhouse reporter? You know what, it seemed like a long journey at the time. But looking back, I guess it could have taken a lot longer. So I did a lot of minor league, covering a lot of minor league baseball. That was my first on-air stuff that I did. And then it kind of worked out that the Philadelphia Phillies were good at the time that I was in Philadelphia. And I had been covering them for radio, which led to some TV opportunities. And before you know it, you snap your fingers and you have a dream job. So I mean, it didn't happen that easily. It was a lot of work. You know, I've missed weddings, birthday parties. You name it to go cover sports and to be around it and to hopefully put myself in a position to succeed. So people say, did you get lucky? And I say, hey, maybe there's an element of luck involved. But I think it's about putting yourself in a position to get lucky. Yeah, no, you absolutely need luck on your journey. There's no doubt about it. You need to be, in my opinion, you have the right mentality. You have to have, of course, in my opinion, a good character in this industry in particular. But you also have to have tremendous amount of talent. And you have all of those attributes. Now, here's a quick one for you. Because you're a woman working in the sports industry, do you get a lot of young girls now reaching out to you, asking you for help to try and make their own journey? I do, I do. And the craziest thing, and you know this, Ian, there's no set path. And if you say, you take this, this is where you'll be at the end of the day. It's such a subjective industry. It's difficult to kind of relay that sometimes to young people who are about to graduate college. They wanna snap their fingers and be at the big job. But I really try to instruct them to just enjoy the journey. The journey is what makes the end job all that much sweeter. And those are some of my best relationships that I've formed. Some of the best times that I've had going through that journey. So there are a lot of people that reached out. And I actually did a Zoom happy hour for Yankees fans last night. And one of the girls that joined the Zoom happy hour is an aspiring broadcaster. So I had a chance to talk with her a little bit and I'll probably email back and forth with her. But do people reach out to you, not only about being a professional soccer player, but also then getting into broadcasting thereafter. That can't be that easy of a transition either. No, it's always difficult. I think when you're in this type of position, there's always people who are out there wanting to be in a similar role to you or trying to figure out, how did you get there? I mean, my journey was a little different. I didn't go to school. I played professional soccer. In Europe, you start very young. I was 15 when I left home. So I actually started broadcasting when I was 21 years old. And I was still a professional soccer player. So I had already done like 40, 50 broadcasts by the time I finished my career. And that was interviews. I was doing like shows. I was going on as guests. I was presenting. I even called a few games before I finished. So I already had a different sort of journey to most people. But it's always good to inspire the younger generation or the next generation. I've got to ask you one really quick, important question. I'm a big fan of Mark Tashara. And I always wondered what he was like in the clubhouse. Like, what was he like as a person, as a personality? He was all business. Was he really? He was pretty busy. Every now and again, he'd drop in a funny one-liner or he'd have a good quote. But he was very smart in his responses. So he was a guy that you could go to and know you were going to get a real honest response. So I always wondered that. Well, the wild and you've probably seen him on the Fox lot. The kind of zaniest was Nick Swisher because he has so much energy. I don't know how you match that energy day in and day out. And then certain guys were funny for different reasons. Everyone kind of has the things that they're into. So you go to certain guys in certain situations. Now, is there a guy on NYCFC that you look at and say, that guy's the class clown right there? Well, there's Eber, the Brazilian. He's got great energy. He's got great enthusiasm. He's a fun guy. Cool celebration. I mean, you know what it's like. With the team, you've always got to have that one Joker. It was probably me in the locker room back in the day. Having that energy, having that positivity. It's so important. As you can see right now, gone through this difficult time with the network. We're all showing our personalities for everybody out there to enjoy. It's been great talking to you, Meredith. Honestly, this is awesome. We got to do it again sometime. But before we go, be honest with me. Yeah. Be honest. That was not your second try getting the ping pong ball into the cup. I'm just not buying it, Ian. I'm not saying anything right now. Okay, you'll have to watch my next episode with Bob and Ian to find out the truth. Oh no. Oh no, yeah. I think there was maybe some editing involved. And then I searched my condo everywhere, trying to find something that I can use to try to duplicate that. Make it happen. Make it happen. I have no golf clubs. I have nothing I can serve as a golf club. I was like, oh, what can I use? Here, what can I use? I'll come up with something. You got it. Make it happen. I want to see it. All right. Sounds good, Ian. Thank you so much. And everyone out there, please continue to stay safe. Try to stay as healthy as you can. And don't forget, we're here.