Hazel Mae mixes a mean bloody Caesar. She perfected the skill atthe Keg Restaurant in downtown Toronto, tending bar between sportssmall talk. It was there, surrounded by bottles of Molson andbroadcasts of Maple Leaf games, that Mae first seriously considered acareer in sports. Encouraged by customers who tipped well forhearing her take on the local teams, she filled her spare timevolunteering for various media outlets, learning the business bycarrying microphones and cable.
Mae delighted in attending games for free, and eventually shelanded an unpaid job providing 10-minute sports updates for YorkUniversity campus radio. From such an inauspicious start, Mae quicklyworked her way up to the morning anchor position at Sportsnet, anational sports network in Canada.
The unlikely rise of Mae from University of Toronto dropout tobartender to 'radio girl,' as she was called, to Canadian televisionpersonality is matched only by her unlikely move to Boston in lateAugust. The Philippines-born female from north of the border, theforeigner in Red Sox Nation, relocated to host the revampedSportsDesk on NESN. Working for Sportsnet gave Mae exposure fromNova Scotia to British Columbia, but nothing could prepare her forthe scrutiny of New England.
So far, her presence on SportsDesk has met with mixed reviews:praise for exhibiting energy on air and allowing her personality tocome through; criticism for using cliches like 'up the gut' and'grand salami' and mispronouncing such familiar nicknames as DavidOrtiz's 'Big Papi.' Most of all, there remains inevitable skepticismabout an outsider coming to a city uniquely connected to its sportsteams.
'I was forewarned that Boston is a tough city,' says the 34-year-old Mae. 'One of my biggest concerns when I thought about gettingthis job was, how is this city so passionate about sports going toaccept someone who not only doesn't come from this area but doesn'tcome from this country? And not only that, but how would they acceptsomeone who is an Asian female in a white, male-dominated, Irish,Catholic city?' I would . . . ask myself, `Hazel, what are yougetting yourself into?''
Striding into the NESN studio with her hair pulled back in a longponytail and her face showing only a touch of makeup, Mae exudesconfidence: Though she is barely 5 feet tall, her perfect posturereinforces the impression of a woman assured of her abilities.
When asked whom she knew in Boston, Mae half-jokingly names PedroMartinez, Manny Ramirez, and Ortiz. After the Red Sox won the WorldSeries, she found herself caught up in the excitement and nowacknowledges that she 'never really realized how passionate fans werehere' until experiencing it.
She probably should have known more about the Red Sox and theirstars, as well as the Bruins, Patriots, and Celtics, before shebegan. Signs that she was outside her comfort zone showed on earlybroadcasts. 'I think a lot of people are sitting back and waiting topass judgment,' says Mae. 'Outside of a couple of comments on WEEIabout why NESN had to go outside of the country to find someone forSportsDesk, I haven't heard anything negative. I don't want to say`yet.' But . . . I know you can't please everybody. As tough as thismarket is, if I do my job, do the work that I know I can do, andpeople know I'm out there giving my best, that I'm passionate, Ithink people will come around. Do I think everybody is going to loveme? No. But I'd rather people respect the fact that I am trying.'
Such a Pollyanna perspective won't win fans in Boston, especially not for a female sports broadcaster. Equating her passion for sportswith that of the Boston fans, Mae says that 'friends know that unlessyou're on your deathbed, you don't call me on Sunday,' when the fullslate of NFL games takes priority. But Boston audiences want morethan energy and enthusiasm.
'As unfair as this may be, women sportscasters are held to ahigher standard,' says John Dennis, who joined WEEI in 1997 afterthree decades in the sports department at Channel 7. 'Fair or not,she has to be better than some guy they might bring in from Torontoto fill the seat. She has to have better insights into the game to belooked at as an equal. Her margin of error is noticeably smaller thana male counterpart. I'm sure she's aware of that. She's gotten bettersince the first day. I think she will grow into it just fine.'
Shaky starts are nothing new for Mae. At Sportsnet, she experienced a rough introduction to her on-air duties, becoming theSportscentral AM host with virtually no television experience.Initially, she shouted the news into her microphone, slouched in herchair, and looked awkwardly at the camera. It was, in her own words,'brutal,' 'horrible,' 'terrible.'
But with three years of anchor experience on her resume, Maepossessed the knowledge and delivery that NESN wanted for SportsDesk,according to Bill Borson, the vice president of programming. The factthat Mae reported extensively on baseball and hockey in Canadahelped her candidacy, since they are the two centerpiece sports atNESN.
'It's a good fit for both of them,' says Frank Shorr, director ofthe Sports Institute at Boston University and former sports producer at Channel 7. 'It's a bigger market than where she came from. At thesame time, NESN is not too big.'
But when first approached about a job in Boston, Mae was notinterested. She wanted to stay close to family and friends inToronto. Now, she has no regrets about the move. 'If I didn't give ita try, I knew I would kick myself later on,' says Mae. 'As someonewho loves sports, I'd be absolutely stupid to not go into such asports-crazy market. I literally picked up my life and moved to acity where I didn't know a soul. To do that, it had to be a city thatis just as passionate about its sports teams as I am about sports ingeneral.'
