And then there are people that fail forward. Now those people are my people. They were presented with an opportunity, failed miserably and then tried again. Or better yet- there was no opportunity so they created one. And failed. And then tried again. Some would call that resilience. Resilience is what the system tells the people who are falling forward to have while quietly rewarding the people who are failing up. That's the scam. You're doing the hard work, taking the hits, getting back up and the person who never fell at all just got promoted. I wrote about this in my last piece and you can read it here.

Which brings me to this week’s guest: Megan Stier. She plays for the Jersey Shore Wave, a women’s football team. She’s one of the wide receivers. Also, she is a beauty queen. As in she competed in beauty pageants from the time she was 9. She never even qualified that first year so she kept showing up until she did. Same was true of football. Give the episode a whirl and let me know what you think. One last thing, after she tried out for the Waves, she had to high tail it across state lines because she booked a part on “Miracle on 34th St.” I guess faith really is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.

Come back next week for a conversation with Denae Benites. She is LIGHTING up with Women’s Professional Baseball League. Leading off for The Heights, The Catcher, #2, Denae Benites.

xo,

marysol

“Anchors Away: GMA Weather Anchor Leaves”, “CBS Weather Anchor Fired”, “PIX 11 Morning Anchor Gone”. These were all actual headlines in NYC rags that I had to live with. Again, the getting in wasn’t hard. The staying in was. Every time I was “let go” from one of these networks I channeled my resilience. When I got divorced I channeled my resilience. When I was broke I channeled my resilience.

Resilience is a scam. That is what Megan Stier said to me and I got a chill up the right side of my body.

I have a good 20 years on Megan and she learned this lesson way earlier than I had. She’s this week’s Her Playbook guest. Megan plays football- she’s a wide receiver for the Jersey Shore Waves. Before hitting the gridiron, she hit the stage as a beauty pageant queen. I know! This is a snippet of our conversation. Come back later in the week for the whole thing. xoxox

Volleyball consists of 6 players1 working together with one goal: do not, under any circumstances, let the ball touch the ground. It seems like an easy enough task- 6 people, one ball, one net, one ground. Plus, you have at least three chances to touch the ball before it goes over the net. Except when you factor in a ball being hurled at your head/knees/feet at a speed and a force that can lay you out. Or when you consider that in order for this to work successfully, you must, in fact communicate with 5 other people. And sometimes that communication comes in the form of a a word yelled across the gym, head nod, a glance, or maybe just a gut feeling.

I played volleyball in high-school. At 5’0” I was not the setter but in fact, the utility player. It was the first team sport I had played. I made varsity as a freshman and was awarded Most Improved Player that year. My sophomore year, I was one of only a few returning players and we were a mess. Individually we all had talent. Nina was nearly 6’ tall, Lonne was quick and could hit from the back row, an exchange student from Sweden (god love her but I don’t remember her name) was our best outside hitter but we needed a setter and so that’s what she did. Defensively, we could not get our acts together which is to say, the ball touched the ground. Our goal, foiled. By us.

One day our head coach Paul, told us that instead of meeting at the gym for practice, we would be meeting on the front porch of the Main Building. We gathered on a crisp fall day, in our practice gear, knee pads and all and wondered what the hell Paul was up to. He possessed neither a ball nor a clipboard and he was playing the part of mute. When the last player stepped onto the porch, Paul began walking. Not sure where he was going or what he was doing but we all followed him like ducks.

We landed at a grassy spot with many trees overhead. He asked us to look up at the trees and keep an eye on falling leaves. We each had to catch one falling leaf before it hit the ground. Once you caught a leaf, you needed to link up with someone else and repeat the process. It was easier to capture a leaf by myself. Once I linked arms with Lonne, she wanted to run one way and I the other. After what felt like 2-hours, (it wasn’t but I was 14 and had no concept of time) my 12 teammates and I were linked as one long snake and had to capture one final leaf. We understood both the metaphor and the assignment. Nature was the Trojan Horse for understanding how to play as a team. I hadn’t thought about that experience in nearly 40 years. But when I invited an elite volleyball player on the pod, she gave me that gift.

Kerri Walsh Jennings didn’t set out to become a volleyball player. It happened by mistake. Her parents took her to a Stanford volleyball match when she was very young and asked if Kerri could be the ball girl. That one decision forever changed the trajectory of her life.

In this episode, I go beyond the Olympic gold medals and wins. Kerri is very candid about her family, her faith, her physical strength, and the businesses she’s built. I asked her about the European Broadcasting Union’s new 23-page manual2, the guidelines telling camera operators how to film female athletes with dignity and respect. She had thoughts.

She laments that there are athletes today who think about the cameras before they think about the competition. That breaks her heart a little. Her mind was always on winning above everything else, above the cameras, above the noise. She and I agreed on something: thank God social media didn’t exist in the early 2000s.

She also said something that pushes back gently on the conversation and I respected her for it. She thinks what beach volleyball players wear is actually conducive to moving with efficiency. The kit serves the athlete. For her it did.

She is terrible at basketball but I still don’t believe her. She is bad at badminton and somehow I believe her. Her dad played Triple-A baseball and she played Little League. I love that as a kid she played something other than volleyball.

And if she could say one thing to Peyton Manning right now? She’d tell him to start a Major League Volleyball franchise in Tennessee or New Orleans. She said it like it was obvious. Because to her it is. She cannot turn the founder off. Not even in a lightning round.

They started when they were very young- maybe 5. They had a lot of natural ability- strong, bendy, quick studies. But what pushed my eldest son to the place where he really honed in on his technique was the moment he was partnered with a girl. That changed everything. That moment in 2014 was the first time I saw a girl wrestle competitively. That young woman, Calle Gilcrest, would become a State Champion (many times over) and she now wrestles at Brown University. In 2025, Women’s Wrestling became the 91st NCAA Championship sport.1

Some time between taking my sons to tournaments all over upstate Connecticut and working for the Mets, I watched a documentary called LUCHA.2 It traces the lives of the first all girls freestyle wrestling team in The Bronx. The film is extraordinary and the young women in the film leave you scared/hopeful/determined. This week on my pod, I catch up with what is now the 3rd cohort of LUCHA wrestlers. Her name is Alexa Nunez.

She is 16 years old and from the Northeast Bronx- not far from where I grew up. She is soft spoken in the way that people who know exactly who they are tend to be. No performance, no posture, just presence. And in five years of wrestling with LUCHA Wrestling, a club with limited resources, that shares space with a boxing club on the 2nd floor of a brick building, no national pipeline behind it, Alexa qualified for Fargo Nationals.

Fargo. The national championships. The mecca of high-school wrestling. She and five other young women from LUCHA punched their ticket to North Dakota. Three years ago, no one from LUCHA went to Fargo.

Here’s what I’ve learned from sitting across women in sports: the resources have no shot against the will to compete and sometimes, win.

Three things that stayed with me:

“Three minutes on the mat can feel like forever.” She said it simply and I felt it in my chest. Most of us can’t hold our breath for three minutes. Alexa Nunez spends those three minutes fighting for something. Every practice. Every tournament. Every time.

“Even though it’s an individual sport, I would not be here without my team.” Wrestling is one of those sports that when you win, you win alone and everyone can see and when you lose, you lose alone and everyone can see. Every person who ever made it somewhere they weren’t supposed to make it will tell you the same thing. You didn’t get there alone. You got there because someone believed in you when you weren’t sure you believed in yourself yet. For Alexa it’s her teammates, her mom, her coaches, and just folks in the stands. And to be clear, she is certain that women’s wrestling is growing so brush up on your lexicon (double leg take-down, ankle pick, arm bars, stalling…..ah the life of a wrestling mami).

We ended with a lightning round. Her favorite music is country. Her game day snack is orange slices and she crushed the The Hunger Games books.

I don’t know why that combination is so perfectly, specifically Alexa Nunez — but it is.

Episode 3 is coming soon. She is one of the most decorated female athletes in American history and she has been waiting a long time to say certain things out loud. Stay tuned.

I was called into the head of talent’s office early in my career. The note was simple: wear clothing that makes you look taller. And less “chica chica.” To note, I am 5’2” and one of my male counterparts was roughly 5’6”. He was not called into the head of talent to discuss his on-air costume or his ethnicity- at least not that I know of. Every now and again that moment in my career taps me on the shoulder. On my best day I shoo it away. On my worst day is sits there waiting for me to acknowledge it.

That same year my wardrobe was called into question, my hair stylist put in clip-in extensions for fun one day. Viewers lost their minds some loved it, some hated it. Management had an opinion too. From that point on, my hair had one approved style. One. Not because it affected my ability to report the news. Because it affected how I was being watched.

I was not a beach volleyball player (though in my 20’s I did play at Chelsea Piers with some coaches I worked with at a high-school where I taught). I was no longer a gymnast or a sprinter (though I was training for a triathlon). I was a broadcast journalist. And still what I wore, how I looked, how much of my culture showed up in my appearance was subject to approval by people who were not me. Some call that objectification.

Last week, the European Broadcasting Union published a 23-page manual1 outlining guidelines for how broadcasters should film female athletes. The manual tells camera operators where to point the camera. Where not to linger. What constitutes coverage and what constitutes something else entirely.

Holly Bradshaw, a British pole vaulter who helped lead the charge on these guidelines said that when she was competing at major events, she was more focused on where the cameras were than on the actual competition. A world-class athlete, at a world championship was thinking about camera angles. And I’m sure she’s not alone. In fact, I know she’s not.

Beach volleyball had a mandatory bikini bottom rule for international competition for years - a garment specification written into the rulebook. Not for performance. For optics. In 2021 the Norwegian women’s beach handball team was fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms during a European championship match. Shorts. They were fined for wearing shorts. This conversation runs across every sport where women compete in a body that the world has decided it has opinions about. I’ll say it again for the folks in back: they call that objectification.

Gymnastics. Track and field. Wrestling. Swimming. The pattern is the same across every sport: women’s uniforms have historically been designed around how they look to a watching audience, not around what allows an athlete to perform at her highest level. Meanwhile the men’s beach volleyball players wear board shorts.

When you are thinking about how you look, you are not thinking about what you are doing. That is true for a broadcaster trying to deliver breaking news. It is true for a pole vaulter trying to clear 4.9 meters. It is true for a wrestler trying to pin her opponent in the third period. The mental bandwidth required to monitor your own appearance is bandwidth stolen from your performance.

Women just want to compete. That is the whole ask. They want to wear what makes them feel powerful, fast, free, and focused. What makes them feel like themselves. Not what makes them look a certain way to a certain audience sitting at home making certain decisions about what a female athlete is supposed to look like.

The kit should serve the athlete. It has not always served the athlete. And the women who pushed back like the Norwegian handball team, Holly Bradshaw, the gymnasts who lobbied for full-length unitards- they weren’t making a fashion statement. They were making a human one.

I had a conversation recently with someone who has thought about this more than almost anyone a three-time Olympic gold medalist who has spent over two decades being one of the most photographed female athletes in the world. We talked about the EBU guidelines, about what it costs a woman athlete to carry the weight of being watched, about the mental energy that goes toward being seen rather than toward winning.

That conversation drops on Her Playbook next week.*

This week Episode 2 features Alexa Nunez, a young wrestler from Lucha Wrestling in the Bronx, who competed at Fargo Nationals. She is 16 years old and she just wants to wrestle. Nobody should have to tell her anything else.

Fans of women’s sports continue growing at a rate nobody predicted and they are showing up for the competition, the community, and the camaraderie not the costume. Is the market finally catching up to what female athletes have always known? This is but a small step with our neighbors across the pond leading the charge.

They came to compete.

In the words of Mel Robbins: Let them.

Her Playbook Kerri Walsh Jennings drops next week. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

I walked into this conversation hungry to learn more about Sofia Cook. She’s 21 and soccer courses through her veins. I left thinking about joy. Sofia talks about preparation and confidence with joy at the center. She is young and has already adopted a lesson some people spend their entire lives never learning.

Sofia Cook is a midfielder for Gotham FC, the reigning NWSL champions. She graduated high school early, left California, chose New York deliberately, and became a champion in her first professional year.

And this tonight, July 15, she plays at Citi Field.

Let me tell you why that matters. The Queens Classic is the first professional women’s sporting event ever held at Citi Field. 40,000 tickets sold. Full stop. In a stadium where I have climbed 150 steps to get to my booth for eight years, where I have called the names of players who have made this city feel alive. Tonight, Gotham FC and Washington Spirit take that field. I will be in the stands, not behind the mic, as a VIP guest of the team. And I will be loud.

I made this episode this week because of this historic event. Because Sofia Cook will be on that field. And I wanted you to know her story before she gets there.

Three things that stayed with me:

“Being prepared and playing with joy brings confidence.” Sofia said it simply and when she did I heard Billie Jean King in my head. Pressure is a privilege but only if you’ve done the work to meet it.

She grew up idolizing Rose Lavelle. Now Rose Lavelle is her teammate. I asked her what that felt like. Her answer reminded me that the ceiling we place on our dreams is almost always lower than what’s actually possible.

We closed with a lightning round. Favorite music, pre-game ritual (spoiler: it involves candy), preferred transport to get around NYC, and pets.

She doesn’t have one. But if she did it would be a hairless cat. I don’t know why that was so funny but we both lost it. Sometimes the best moments in a conversation have nothing to do with the question.

I have been building toward this for a long time. Longer than I’ve said publicly. Longer than the deck, the 1-pager, the meetings, the strategy sessions. Longer than LeadOFF Media- true story.

I have spent 25 years in broadcast journalism telling other people’s stories. At Good Morning America. At CBS News. At ESPN. At PIX. I once tried doing this on my own as an independent back in 2013 and well, it didn’t pan out to much of anything. In fact, a funny thing happened on my way to launching what was then called Somos1. I got the call and the next thing I knew I was at Citi Field the first female PA Announcer in New York Mets history. The first Latina PA Announcer for Major League Baseball.

I know what a great story sounds like. I know what it feels like when someone tells the truth on camera. I know that my lived experience as a mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, survivor, teacher, student, athlete affords me something that has been in short order of late: empathy. I don’t know what it is but I feel a kinship to people I meet in a TV studio, ballpark, sideline, or set. I’m not saying I become besties with all of those strangers but I feel a connection- even if it’s fleeting and lasts only 5 minutes while the red light is on and the stopwatch is ticking. I meet folks where they are and ask nothing in return. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know.

I know that I’m an instrument for storytelling. I know I assuage the fears of people I speak to such that they open up to me. When appropriate, I return the favor in kind. I know the sting of rejection, the elation of joy, and the tingle of hope. I know those feelings and can experience all of them in the span of a day. Sometimes less.

I don’t know technology. I don’t know how to not get annoyed at the first mile of a 5-mile run. I don’t know why I can never remember the titles of songs. Up until a few days ago, I didn’t know how to embed video into this very app. I don’t know who my children will grow up to be. And I am hopeful.

I’m learning how to ask for help. I’m learning that “the process” involves evolving and starting over. I’m learning that my life is unfolding exactly as it’s meant to unfold. Am I manifesting? I think everything that is for me is there waiting for me. I am merely learning how to orient myself towards it. I’m learning to be still and quiet so I can follow the path towards the next adventure, the next thing that aligns with my purpose.

And so here I am. Learning out loud. Building in public on my terms. Turning all of it- the knowing and the not knowing, the rejection and the hope into something I can put a name to.

Her Playbook is what happens when a woman with 25 years of earned access finally turns the mic toward the women in sports who have never been asked the right questions. Not the highlights. The humans.

Episode 1 drops tomorrow. My guest is 21 years old, plays for the reigning NWSL champions, and on Wednesday she plays in the Queens Classic at Citi Field. It’s the first professional women’s sporting event ever held at that stadium. 40,000 tickets sold.

I wanted you to know her story before she gets there.

See you mañana.

xo,

Marysol

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Shall we discuss Alyssa Thomas? Good.

If you missed it, Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas received a one-game suspension after a flagrant foul on Caitlin Clark last week. What happened next has nothing to do with basketball. She received death threats. Threats against her family. Racial slurs. Her home address was leaked online. I believe they call that “getting doxxed”.

Let me say that again. A professional basketball player had her home address leaked because she committed a foul.

Alyssa Thomas then did something that took more courage than any play on the court: she called out the WNBA directly for failing to protect its players. Not quietly. Publicly.

This is not a sports story. This is a story about what it costs to be a Black woman competing at the highest level in America. It is a story about who gets protected and who doesn’t. And it is a story that every single person who loves women’s sports needs to reckon with because you cannot cheer for these women on the court and look away when they are being targeted off of it.

The WNBA has a responsibility. And right now it is not meeting it.

I’m watching. And I hope you are too.

WHO YOU SHOULD KNOW

Phaidra Knight.

I saw her at the ballpark the other night. Pride Night to be exact. She was being inducted into the LGBTQ+ Sports Hall of Fame. Moments like this are an added perk to being on the mic at Citi Field. Phaidra is my former rugby teammate and not enough people know who this woman is.

Let me fix that. *pulls mic close, stares out on the field, “Now entering the game….”

^{PK visiting me in the booth after being inducted into the LGBTQ+ Sports Hall of Fame.}

Phaidra Knight discovered rugby in law school. She went on to represent the United States in three Women’s Rugby World Cups, was named USA Rugby’s Player of the Decade in 2010, and became the only African American inducted into both the World Rugby Hall of Fame and the USA Rugby Hall of Fame.

Then she retired. At 43. And decided to become a professional MMA fighter. As one does when one retires at 43. Go off PK!

She turned pro at 50, the oldest woman ever to make a professional MMA debut after going 5-0 as an amateur.She is a lawyer. She founded PeaK Unleashed, a nonprofit empowering girls and women through sport. She appeared in Halle Berry’s film “Bruised”. She is 51 years old and she has a fight at Madison Square Garden this September.

Read that list again. Slowly.

When I think about the Alyssa Thomas story and then I think about Phaidra Knight, I think about what it actually looks like when a Black woman refuses to let the world shrink her. In a courtroom. On a rugby pitch. In an octagon. At a baseball stadium on a Tuesday night just being her magnificent self.

Find her. Follow her. Show up to MSG in September.

WHAT I’M BUILDING

The Queens Classic is July 15 at Citi Field - mi casa.

I’ll be there not as the PA Announcer this time, but as a VIP guest of Gotham FC. I won’t lie I noticed I didn’t get the call to be behind the mic. And then I thought about it for about five seconds and decided: sometimes it’s good to be a spectator. Not just any spectator- one who has been recognized and welcomed by a women’s professional team into their most historic night.

Sam Kerr just signed with Gotham FC. More than 29,000 tickets are already sold. This could be the largest women’s sports crowd in New York City history. "Oh and Gotham FC just won the NWSL Challenge Cup last Friday. The reigning champions are coming to Citi Field- the same ballpark where I climb 150 steps every home game.

On July 15, someone else will be on the mic. I’ll be in the stands. I plan to be loud.

THE PLAY

Alyssa Thomas got suspended, targeted, threatened, and doxxed. She showed up anyway not silently, but loudly, calling out the very institution that failed to protect her.

Phaidra Knight retired from one elite sport and walked into the most physically demanding one she could find. At 50. She showed up anyway.

Every woman I’ve written about in this Dispatch has been told explicitly or implicitly that there wasn’t room for her. In the league. In the octagon. Behind the mic. At the table.

They showed up anyway.

That’s The Play this week. Whatever room you’ve been told isn’t for you show up anyway. Make them deal with your presence. Make them learn your name.

Show up anyway.

P.S. In the last three weeks, three New York teams have won championships: the Knicks won the NBA Finals for the first time since 1973, the Liberty won the WNBA Commissioner's Cup, and Gotham FC won the NWSL Challenge Cup. I don't know what's in the water in this city right now but I am not leaving. Unless it’s to a beach.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

This week women’s sports handed us two of the greatest comeback stories of the year. Both happened in the last 72 hours. Both are doing it on their own terms.

First Katelyn Ohashi. If you know her, you already smiled when you read her name. If you don’t she was the next great Olympic hope for American gymnastics. Then the sport broke her. Injuries. Body shaming. A toxic coaching environment that made her feel like the medals were worth more than she was. So she left. She went to UCLA, rekindled her joy, and on January 12, 2019 scored a perfect 10 on floor exercise to a mashup of Earth, Wind and Fire, Janet and Michael Jackson, and Tina Turner that generated 240 million views. Kamala Harris tweeted about it. Jemele Hill tweeted about it. And her teammates on the sidelines? They knew her routine by heart and moved right along with her. I, watching from my sofa at home, did that little head shake she did at the end, the same time she did. Because that’s what Katelyn Ohashi does. She makes you feel it.

Yesterday, seven years after her last NCAA meet, she announced she’s going back to elite gymnastics. She competes this Saturday- as in THIS Saturday, 2 days from now. Her words: “I’m taking it one day at a time; one skill, one event, one dream. So here goes nothing.”

So here goes nothing. At 29. On her own terms.

Second Serena Williams. We already knew she and Venus were playing doubles at Wimbledon starting this Sunday. (It was in the last Dispatch if you keep track of that sort of thing. Clearly I do because….Virgo Rising.). Then two days ago Wimbledon announced Serena also received a wild card into singles. SINGLES. At 44. Seven Wimbledon singles titles. Four years away from the sport. And she’s back — not because anyone asked her to be, but because she wanted to. Combined age of the Williams sisters: 90. Combined Wimbledon titles: 21. My combined emotions: infinity plus infinity. Also, booking tennis clinics stat!

Mark your calendar. Wimbledon starts Sunday. Watch every single point.

WHO YOU SHOULD KNOW

Erika Francis-Ruiz.

I met her at the L’ATTITUDE conference in 2021 — a gathering of Latino titans that is essentially Davos for our community. She was already making moves then. I just didn’t know how many. I was smart enough to introduce myself to her and her wife and they could not have been warmer or kinder.

^{Monica Francis and Erika Francis-Ruiz. Founders of Primera Sport.}

Erika started in a mailroom. CAA’s mailroom, to be specific. And she worked her way up to become the first Latina agent in the NBA. Then she negotiated a $130 million contract for Fred VanVleet at Klutch Sports Group. That’s LeBron James’s agency please and thank you.

And then she left to build her own thing.

She and her wife co-founded Primera Basketball a boutique sports agency built on their own terms. Yesterday at the 2026 NBA Draft, Primera had a player drafted…por favor y gracias.

Read that again. A Latina woman. Her wife by her side. Their agency. Their player. On the biggest night in basketball.

Her dad always told her: “Don’t wait for doors to open — knock them down.”

She didn’t just knock. She built a new door entirely.

Find her. Follow her. Remember her name.

WHAT I’M BUILDING

Two things happened this week that I want you to know about.

The podcast I did with Pedro Guerrero for The Latino Majority has been making the rounds. Pedro is one of the most connected Latino executives in the country. He is smart, strategic, generous, forward thinking, and truly elevates Latino voices across all industries. I am so grateful he and Vianni Lubus had me on. Indulge me and give it whirl- the link is below. And this Friday, I’m recording an episode of Worth, Jim McCann’s podcast, at my home away from home, Citi Field. Jim founded 1-800-Flowers and built a $3 billion company on the belief that human connection is the most powerful force in business. I agree with him. LeadOFF is proof.

Two very different rooms. Same Marysol.

Her Playbook is in pre-production. The mic goes on next week. I’ll have more to share very soon.

THE PLAY

A filmmaker I respect told me something this week that I haven’t been able to shake.

“You are the sauce.”

Not the deck. Not the company. Not the format. You. Whatever you’re building- a career, a company, a new chapter stop hiding behind it. The thing that makes it irreplaceable is you. Your access. Your relationships. Your story. Your voice. Nobody else has your combination. Nobody can replicate it. Stop waiting until it’s more ready. You are the reason anyone says yes. Go be the sauce. Or the salsa. Mine is tomatillo and I make it from scratch and one day I will sell it so you all can taste it.

The Latino Majority Podcast: Marysol Castro Edition

Now back to the Dispatch…..

WHAT I’M WATCHING

First - Sha’Carri Richardson won the 100 meters at the LA Grand Prix on Sunday. Her first 100m win of the season. 10.99 seconds into a headwind. She called 2026 her “legendary” season back in March not just on the track but as the woman she’s designed to be. I believe her and want to be her. But wait there’s more: the USATF Championships are coming to New York City for the first time ever! Icahn Stadium, July 23-26. Sha’Carri. NYC. July. Mark it.

Second - Venus and Serena Williams received a wild card for Wimbledon doubles. Tuesday. Together. For the first time since 2022. Serena is 44. Venus turns 46 today. Combined age of 90. Six Wimbledon doubles titles. And Angel Reese commented “OMFG YESSSS” on the announcement post which is honestly the only reaction any of us needed.

I don’t know if they’ll win. I know I’ll be watching every single point.

WHO YOU SHOULD KNOW

Kelsie Whitmore.

She is pitching in a professional baseball league. Not softball. Baseball. Against men. And winning.

The Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) launches August 1st -the first professional women’s baseball league in 70 years. Kelsie Whitmore is its first overall draft pick. She’s also playing for the Savannah Bananas. She’s a Forbes 30 Under 30. She’s Filipina-American. And she said something that has stayed with me: “Baseball is what you do, not who you are.”

Find her. Follow her. The WPBL is the most exciting new league in sports and she is its face.

WHAT I’M BUILDING

Honest update from the field: one thing I was building quietly this summer didn’t come together. A live event I’d been planning fell through when the partner went silent. It happens. You build anyway.

Here’s what did happen this week: I emailed three people I’d been putting off. All three responded. One in-person meeting is now on the calendar. One player booking is in motion. And I just sent an email to the communications team at Gotham FC about recording a Her Playbook episode before the Queens Classic the first women’s professional sporting event ever at Citi Field on July 15. Looks like NYC will be a busy month in the women’s sports world.

Her Playbook is getting made.

Subscribe now

THE PLAY

When something falls through, resist the urge to announce it publicly or explain it to everyone who knew about it. Just build the next thing. Nobody needs a press release about a closed door. They need to see you walk through the next open one. The people who matter will see the momentum. The people who don’t weren’t really watching anyway.

Build. Keep building. Don’t stop to explain. When in doubt: Jalen Brunson.

After I accepted the position as the first female PA Announcer for the Mets and the first Latina PA Announcer in MLB, I had no idea just how big it would be. I worked in broadcast and so covering the news is one thing. Becoming the news is something altogether different. In 2018, I wasn’t working a traditional TV job. I was “in-between” jobs which is euphemism for I had been laid off 2 years prior. Instead of waiting for a TV executive to hire me, I tried my hand at something independent. I created a show about extraordinary Latinas across different industries. I called it Somos and was shopping my sizzle reel to folks I knew in the industry. Which is to say, I was getting a lot of “Mari, this is a great idea” and then “let me know where this goes.” It went to the graveyard of Google docs and Vimeo links.

A funny thing happened on the way to yet another “informational meeting” with a tv exec to pitch Somos: my phone rang. It was the New York Mets. Did I want to audition to be the PA Announcer? Could I record something at home and then come to the ballpark to do a live audition?

Why me and why now?

In the end, those questions didn’t matter even though they are the most crucial in any journalist’s arsenal. This role, although new, was familiar in that I was communicating and would use my voice. Only this time I really heard my own voice going all the way out to Section 538 and then bouncing back at me into the booth.

My very first live read at Citi Field on June 5, 2018

And I could manipulate my voice any way I wanted : get people hyped, get a player hyped, encourage people to pause and reflect, usher people home safely. On the field, I could yap with players and coaches in English, Spanish, and sometimes Spanglish and no one would bat an eyelash over it.

Jose Bautista reflecting on being a Latino player in MLB.

Eight years later here is what I do know:

1. I’m not here because I’m lucky. I’m good and someone gave me a shot.

2. When you are meant to be where you are meant to be, the helpers arrive and they are fiercely loyal and will protect you at all costs.

3. Laugh at yourself even when you announce the wrong player in center field.

4. Not everyone is going to love you. (My therapist warned me about this when I was in my 20’s. I thought he was crazy at the time.)

5. If you make a mistake, make it big and deliberate and pick yourself up and brush yourself off.

6. Be open to learning something new especially when it’s a sport you think you know like the back of your hand.

7. Don’t take things personally, hydrate, and learn to take a bathroom break in 2 minutes.

8. Be deliberate.

THE LEADOFF DISPATCH — Issue 1 Thursday, June 4, 2026

WHAT I’M WATCHING

The Knicks won Game 1 of the NBA Finals and I along with nearly every other New Yorker nearly lost my mind. If you were at Citi Field a few Sundays ago when the Mets won The Subway Series in a walk-off, you heard it - the entire stairwell erupting in “Knicks in 4!” before we even hit the street. That’s New York. We don’t wait for permission to celebrate.

But here’s what’s running parallel in my brain: Season 30 of the WNBA is underway and the Las Vegas Aces are defending champions after one of the most audacious second-half runs in sports history. They were .500 in last August. They won 16 straight. They swept the Finals. A’ja Wilson is straight fire and the only thing I love more than her playing is her on-court dance during a time-out!

If you’re not watching her right now you are missing something that will be in highlight reels for the next 20 years.

And mark June 21 on your calendar. The LA Sparks host the New York Liberty- a rematch of the very first WNBA game ever played, on the exact anniversary of that 1997 tip-off. If you know, you know. If you don’t you can read it below:

WHAT I’M BUILDING

Honestly? This. Right here. The LeadOFF Dispatch is what I’m building this week and I don’t think that’s a small thing.

I’ve been talking about LeadOFF Media for 16 years I just didn’t know what to call it. The deck exists. The show exists on paper. The vision is clear. This newsletter is something keeps me honest as I continue to build it because without a community, LeadOFF is nothing.

So this IS what I’m building right now. Issue 1. Week 1. The foundation of something that I hope you’ll still be reading when Her Playbook* is on your screen and women’s sports has taken over the world. Which it will.

WHO YOU SHOULD KNOW

Denae Benites.

Remember that movie A League of Their Own? The one that made you cry despite what Tom Hank’s character proclaimed?! Yeah I wondered why no one ever told me about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League too.

Good news! The Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) launches August 1st, the first professional women’s baseball league in 70 years. And Denae Benites is on the New York roster, suiting up for the very first game in league history.

She’s been playing baseball not softball, baseball- her whole life in spaces that weren’t built for her. Now they’re building them for her. Find her. Follow her. Remember her name. (BTW, she’s also playing for the Savannah Bananas so watch her there too.)

THE PLAY

The most important email I sent this week was one I’d been putting off for years. Not because I didn’t want to send it. Because I was waiting for the exact right moment, compelling words and the perfect version of what I was building. I kept thinking when it’s more ready, when I’m more ready, then I’ll reach out.

Here’s what I know now: the right moment was two years ago. The second right moment is today.

There is someone in your phone right now who said something to you over lunch, on the sidelines at your kids’ game, at an event, in a hallway that you never followed up on. Someone who expressed belief in you and you let it sit there, unanswered, because you weren’t sure you were ready.

You’re ready. Send the email.

If you've been reading In My Voice, you know me as a writer. Starting today, I'm also your insider.

I've spent 25 years in sports and broadcast media — GMA, CBS News, ESPN, WPIX, and right now as the PA Announcer for your New York Mets. For the last two years I've been quietly building something of my own: a media company called LeadOFF and a show called Her Playbook, dedicated to the women shaping the future of sports. Not the highlights. The humans.

The LeadOFF Dispatch lands in your inbox every Thursday. Here's what to expect:

What I'm Watching — my take on what's happening in women's sports right now. Not a recap. My actual opinion.

What I'm Building — a transparent window into LeadOFF. The wins, the stumbles, and everything in between.

Who You Should Know — one woman in sports you need on your radar before everyone else catches on.

The Play — one tactical thing for anyone building a career or a company in sports. First issue drops next Thursday.

In the meantime, I'll be watching the Liberty, NCAA Softball and the final days of the Women’s College World Series (if you haven’t seen NiJaree Canady yet you’re missing out) building something big in Rhode Island this July, and introducing you to a few wrestlers from The Bronx who are about to take Fargo by storm.
Pull up a chair. I'm glad you're here.

xo,

Marysol

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The first Subway Series of the 2026 season was prescient. After the final out on that Sunday, when the Mets won in a walk-off hit in extras, the ballpark shook. “Put it in the books,” as Howie Rose would say. As we all emptied Citi Field, all the fans in the stairwell erupted in a unified chant of “Knicks in 4!” If you missed it, I wrote about it down below:

In My Voice

Subway Series: Flushing Edition

Thanks for reading In My Voice! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work…

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3 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Marysol Castro

The NY Knicks did sweep the Cleveland Cavaliers in 4 games and they now head to the NBA finals. They haven’t done this since Bill Clinton was in office and Ricky Martin was Livin La Vida Loca. The year was 1999 and the Knicks shared Madison Square Garden with the New York Liberty. Ellie was not yet born (neither of them), women shooting logo 3s was not yet a thing, and you could still count the number of fans in seats. Those of us buying tickets had 4 short months to watch an elite group of female athletes play professional basketball. We went in-person because we couldn’t find games on TV very easily. The WNBA felt very much like a summer job.

But actually, let’s back up 2 years prior to June 21, 1997. The very first game in WNBA history. New York Liberty versus LA Sparks out in Inglewood, California. The Liberty didn't just play in the first game. They won it 67-57. Years later, Teresa Weatherspoon reflected on that historic day. “We were scared to death. Not afraid to play the game, but we wanted to do well because it was televised. I remember being on the bus and we all were looking at each other like — it’s time.” The Liberty finished 17-11 and made it all the way to the WNBA Finals in their very first season. They lost to the Houston Comets 65-51 in a one-game championship series. They were runners-up in year one. Mayor Giuliani was so moved he declared September 3, 1997 "New York Liberty Day" in New York City.

I can’t tell you how many games I went to that first year or how many games I went to in 1999. As I think back, I wonder if I had been at MSG at the same time a little baller from Syracuse was watching her idols like T Spoon and Rebecca Lobo? Breanna Stewart watched the Liberty in the ‘90s and when she grew up, she helped bring New York their first WNBA Championship in 2024. It was the last original franchise to win a title. After the win, Breanna said “I wanted to come here and I wanted to be the first.”*

What does it mean to have believed before the proof arrived? Heartache? Definitely. Struggle? Heck yeah. Hope? Without it there is only despair. Season 30 for the W is in full swing. It’s no longer a summer job as the players literally created a league so that these women could make more money by playing the sport they love. I was there at the beginning (and I have the shirt to prove it) and I’m here now. I still can’t ball to save my life but I do know what it means to believe in something before anyone else can see it.

1 Same Stewie. Same.

The routine is always the same: Battle traffic on the Whitestone, pull out my parking badge, wave at the security guard, search for a spot. Walk under the expressway, mean mug the crossing guard (feel empathy because it might very well be the bottom rung of being an NYPD officer) cross the street. Walk, walk, walk. Wave to the guy perched on the milk crate in front of the auto body shop, cross the street. Walk, walk, walk. Look up at the changing sky- a half built soccer stadium. “CITY OF NEW YORK” etched into the stone side. Walk slower and look to my right- a line already forming and today the humans are standing a little taller, chests puffed out a little broader. They don’t want to like each other. They also don’t want to hate each other. They will 100% bust each other’s chops.

Walk, walk, walk and bang a right. More humans. And the occasional puppy. Couples and mothers and fathers and grandparents and neighbors. Young and young at heart. The accent (this is the World’s Borough after all), the swagger, the flags, the heat rising from the concrete, the pinstripe jersey, the blue and orange jersey, the jersey split in half. Two teams. One city. The moment my routine gets very Nuevayol.

Congestion pricing, the LIRR strike, 4 bucks a gallon for regular unleaded, NJ Transit ticket prices to get to the World Cup, rent, 7 bucks for an avocado and it’s not even organic.

Oh my god it’s so friggin hot.

I told you we shoulda taken the 7.

Mira they got a block party!

New Yorkers can find anything to complain about and will find any reason to celebrate. I know because I’m one of them. We’re not nice. We’re kind. We love hard and take things seriously. Your “demure” is our “dead ass” and please don’t get it twisted. “You good” has more meanings than Inuits have for the word snow. But/and/also you either love the Mets or the Yankees and this is the first Subway Series of the season so who you rootin’ for?

Walk, walk, walk past the big red apple and Tom Terrific to catch a glimpse of the block party. Double back and climb, climb, climb up 150ish steps to my booth. Push open the door and there she is. The view never gets old.

Yankee fans know we have the better ballpark. They don’t do whimsy in The Bronx and still I’ll catch them on our dance cam boppin’ to Razor’s beats or high-fiving Mrs. and Mr. Mets. It’s ok because from where I stand, perched high above home plate where the chorus bounces between “Let’s Go Yankees!” and “Let’s Go Mets!” fans are happy - even if it’s just for 9 innings (or the occasional 10). They have the same energy rooting for their guys as they do rooting against ours. It’s a long season. We took this one with a walk-off in extras. Someone was getting a Gatorade bath. Walk, walk, walk, down the 150ish steps back down to the street, everyone was delirious with energy. “KNICKS IN FOUR, KNICKS IN FOUR!” We good.

I was driving a white sedan (by the way, my first car was a white Plymouth Duster. Five-speed). I was steady, in control until suddenly, I wasn’t. Someone I knew was in the passenger seat. Someone who, in real life, had taken up more space than they deserved. Someone I had learned to navigate carefully. In the dream, I did something I didn’t do back then.

I confronted him.

And I was scared. The kind of fear where you try to wake yourself up because you know you’re dreaming but you can’t. My passenger turned aggressive, unpredictable, and something shifted. The connection between my brain and my body changed in an instant. So I made a decision.

I didn’t try to manage it. I didn’t try to soften it. I didn’t stay. I made a U-turn. A hard one. The kind that doesn’t ask for permission. The street was dark, but I remember seeing light ahead. A figure in the distance. A reminder, maybe, that I wasn’t alone. I rolled down the window and screamed for help. And then, right before impact, I jumped. The car kept going. My passenger was gone and I was still here, alive, breathing, panting.

I haven’t stopped thinking about that moment. Not the crash but the choice. Because there was a version of me who would have stayed in that car. Who would have tried to control the outcome. Who believed endurance was the same thing as strength.

Isn’t that what we’re taught? As athletes? As women? Keep going. Push through. Don’t quit. Like a toddler learning not to touch a hot stove, I’m learning that power doesn’t always look like pushing forward. Sometimes, it looks like turning around and leaving before impact.

Societies celebrate grit, staying the course, seeing things through. But real discipline the kind no one talks about, is recognizing misalignment in real time and choosing differently. There are moments when things simply aren’t safe. When things aren’t meant for you. And you’re allowed to say no and walk.

So many moments in my life looked perfectly fine from the outside. To everyone else, I was polished, moving, functioning, showing up. On the inside, I was shrinking, terrified quietly questioning my own worth.

Like the gymnast who keeps bruising her shins on the bars until she finally learns the catch I kept going. Until one day, there was a knowing. A quiet voice that said, calmly: this road isn’t yours anymore.

And when that happens, you have a choice.You can keep missing the catch.
You can keep driving. Or you can dismount, stop, and turn around.

Back to that dream in the Plymouth Duster. I didn’t crash. I chose. And lately, I’ve been asking myself: Where else in my life is that choice waiting for me? Because the U-turn isn’t failure. It’s direction, a reorienting. And sometimes, it’s the very thing that saves you.

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Whilst noodling over the Men's US Hockey Team and all the things happening there (*waves hands wildly in a circular motion) I tried to reckon with my own two sons and how I'm raising them. I have modeled what it means to be a decent man (mind you I identify as a woman) while also being a decent ally for women. Because if you support women when no one is looking, not supporting them in public makes women non-issues. To me, being a non-issue is a fate far worse than being hated. I guess when you grow up in a patriarchy, you grow numb to hate.

I have no idea what the men on the US Hockey Team (including coaches and staff) consumed at home, in school, on tv, on the rink or anywhere but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the version of the "ideal" male back then was not the same version that I'm trying raise in my own home. And trust, as a single mother I relied heavily on male coaches and teachers because I could only teach my boys what it means to be a man from my perspective. (Some might call that dangerous but here we are.)

When the Women’s US Hockey Team won in overtime, I did what I always do when I see beauty in sports: I wept. The win was extraordinary not just for the 23 players on the team but for women in sport everywhere and on every level. When Alysa Liu won gold for Women’s Figure Skating the collective joy in the circle of women’s sports was palpable. But it’s what she did after she won that really hit me in the heart: she embraced her competitor and hugged her and congratulated her. When Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles stood on the Olympic podium during the Summer Games in 2024, they bowed to Rebeca Andrade as a way of giving Rebeca her flowers but/and/also they knew the world was watching.

Back to consumption and what we’re all fed about what it means to be masculine or feminine or just simply human. The Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA did some research* about what Gen Z and Gen Alpha want to see in male-identifying characters on TV, especially fathers and father figures. Is it macho to support women in public when everyone is watching? Or is it just human?

*Gen A and Gen Z: Evolving Masculinity

Before Biggie, Eminem, and Tiger Woods, KRS One and Doug E. Fresh had us walking around with boom boxes and cardboard. I was making up floor routines in my living room to “Roxanne’s Revenge” knowing full well I would never actually use them in my gymnastics competitions. At school, I would day dream about going to the Olympics. Instead of memorizing math solutions, I was memorizing that floor routine. During that magical week in June when public school teachers were tired of us and tired of teaching, Mrs. Printz rolled out the tv cart and pressed “play” on the VCR. It was 1984 and “Nadia” had just come out. A Romanian woman became the first to score a perfect 10 on the uneven bars. By the time Mary Lou Retton scored a perfect 10 on vault at the Summer Games of that same year, I had bonafide heroes. When the Olympics were over, I had no girls to root for in sports. I had to wait another 4 years to see women and girls plays sports on tv and to a 10-year old, that was an eternity.

So I did what ever other youngest child in a family of four does: I watched what my brother watched. For us that was the Yankees and the Mets, the Knicks, the Giants, and the Rangers. When there was extra cash or a friend had spare tickets, we went to the stadium and sat in the bleachers (back when one could afford Bleacher Seats.) As I write this and rack my brain for a memory at MSG, only one is crystal clear. It was not a Knick game. It was a Liberty game in the summer of 1997.* For those of you keeping score, 1997 was the inaugural year of the Women’s National Basketball Association aka The W. The athletes I had seen in Storrs, CT playing for Geno’s UCONN were now in the bigs.

It was the only game I saw that year and not because I didn’t want to watch. There simply was nowhere to watch unless you went to an actual game. The same was true of the American Basketball League (ABL), Women’s Pro Softball League (WPSL) Ladies League Baseball (LLB) and United Soccer League (USL W-League)*. And to be honest, I didn’t just want to watch the game, I wanted to know more about the players. What did they eat for breakfast? What other sports did they play? Who was their first coach? Did they ever get nervous? Who taught them how to play? Did they have a hype song and if so what was it? What was on their playlist? Did they play better when they were angry or happy? How often did they cry? What did they do when they weren’t playing sports? Who were they playing for and why?

In a few months, another paradigm shift is unfolding. Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, a franchise that ran for 35 years, a franchise that I have been a part of while working for the New York Mets, is being replaced with “Women’s Sports Sundays.” It’s not an experiment and it’s not an accident. See back when I watched Rebecca Lobo and T Weatherspoon light up The Garden in 1997 for the Liberty, I instantly became a fan not just of the game but of the culture. I craved more of that feeling of community. Yes the games were exciting but/and/also we, the fans, gathered for one moment to watch our favorite players defy physics, to hear them roar (and we returned the favor in kind), to feel safe and recognized because some of us wanted to play the game too. The game was the reason, the players were the why.

As different sports began trickling into the mainstream (lookin’ at you soccer, volleyball, softball, and now rugby, wrestling, and baseball) fans were ready to answer the call. They never went anywhere and this was the moment. Now is the time for the movement because unlike our male counterparts, fans of women’s sports arrived first. The infrastructure is trying to catch-up. I for one, am very hopeful and will contribute in any way shape or form. And not with that floor routine……

This kinship felt foreign at the time because my career trajectory was not met with kindness by other women. There appeared to be so few of us in newsrooms and on sidelines that many of us were fighting for crumbs. Sprinkle in my Latinidad and well, it was an added layer of complexity. I looked for the helpers like Mr. Rogers advised. Lacking true discernment, I reached in the dark for anyone that might guide me in my quest to reach my potential. Some were helpful. Most were downright despicable. Both the men and the women. I sat squarely in a purgatory perhaps of my own making.

I search for answers on the inside and in the past 15 years, only one thing is certain: I cannot nor will I ever be able to force an outcome. I can however, teach and be taught, let the passage of time roll over me like a golden elixir, and be open to receiving what is meant for me. And that is the magic of Renel Brooks-Moon. Saying precious little other than “I can’t wait for them to hear your voice” or “I can’t wait for your first All-Star Game at Citi” or “You call me any time day or night”. She was and still is my guide, my compass, and my light when the going gets rough. Renel taught me about true kinship in my career. And it has never felt like work.

Since 2018, two other women have become public address announcers in MLB. Amelia Schimmel for the A’s in 2021 and Adrienne Roberson for the Orioles also in 2021. Renel, on the other hand, has retired from her post with the Giants. And that, is her story to tell. *

This August, baseball players comprised of four teams on both coasts, will make history for the debut of the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL). Which leads me back to the explosion of women in sports and women and sports. We’re no longer fighting for crumbs and no longer will we work for them. In the climb to be accepted and recognized and ultimately do the thing we love, we found each other. And the leagues, and the brands, and the investors no longer have a choice to ignore us. Not unless they want to get left behind and leave money on the table. The WNBA, Unrivaled, LOVB (League One Volleyball), WER (Women’s Elite Rugby), NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League), WNFC (Women’s National Football Conference) and the PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) are leading the way on the professional side. On the college side: wrestling, softball, STUNT (acrobatics & tumbling) and beach volleyball gain traction every day.

How many of these leagues were you able to recognize?

*Renel puts down the mic

On the way to a doctor’s appointment, Myriam, my mother, told me she needed a passport. At 89 she wants to go to Europe I thought.

“Where you trying to go Mami?”

“Bueno, I’d like to go back to PR.”

“Puerto Rico is part of the United States. You don’t need a passport.”

That is when my mother began scrolling through post after post after post of folks in the Lower 48 being denied entry either to Puerto Rico or back to the mainland because they didn’t have passports.

“Could have been worse. They could have been detained by those Icemen.”

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Her doctor’s appointment was harrowing and downright stressful. My mother had a series of traumatic falls as a toddler and the surgeons in 1940 Puerto Rico did a bang up job putting her back together. She has a lopsided walk and that never stopped her from carrying on literally and figuratively. One year after divorcing my father, he died. She’s a two-time cancer survivor and lost her son during the pandemic. On this routine trip to the urologist the doctor found a teen tiny tumor. The doctor gave her three options.

“Let me ask you something” my mother said while propping herself up on her side to be closer to the doctor. “If I was your grandmother, what would you do for her?”

And that was that. She chose the option the doctor would perform on his own grandmother. The entire procedure took less than 10 minutes. Five of those minutes were painful for her and gutting for me and the nurse. After the color came back to her face, and downing a glass of water we were done. The obvious next step was to go eat pizza.

New Haven pizza never does us wrong. Miriam likes the thin crust and so do I. In this moment, it was nourishing for many reasons. As we waited for our margarita pie to arrive, my mother took out her phone to show me a map. The dots indicated where ICE was expected to hit next. Her exact neighborhood.

“I have news for you- I am staying inside. I am not going out except to church and when I do, I am not speaking Spanish. Those Icemen are dangerous and I cannot believe they are getting paid. PAID MARYSOL. You know how many people are doing honest work and not making as much money? Nevermind the innocent people they are taking. He can’t get away with this.”

My 89-year old mother. A survivor of many things. Was she throwing in the towel? Maybe she was just tired. Maybe she had seen enough. There is still literal ice and ICE on the streets of NYC.

*Before Lincoln Center was built in the 1960s, its 16-acre site on the Upper West Side was the vibrant, densely populated, and diverse neighborhood of San Juan Hill. Primarily home to Black and Puerto Rican working-class residents, it was a cultural hub for jazz. The area was razed for "urban renewal" in the 1950s, displacing over 7,000 families.