Jenny Dell is the new Heidi Watney in Boston

You're right. If it were any other onfield reporting position for any other baseball team, we probably wouldn't be starting off a day with news of it being filled.

But over the past few years, NESN has made a habit of hiring very attractive females to report on the Boston Red Sox during its game broadcasts.

Which more or less makes the said reporter the de facto homecoming queen of New England.

Which more or less makes Monday's hiring of Jenny Dell from ESPN interesting and noteworthy.

Ms. Dell's qualifications (via NESN):

Dell comes to NESN from ESPN where she served in several different roles, including on-air reporter. The University of Massachusetts graduate has reported from the last two Super Bowls and delivered AccuScore reports for ESPN.com. She also has experience behind the camera, working since 2008 at several different high profile events and programs for ESPN, including Major League Baseball (MLB), Monday Night Football, National Basketball Association (NBA) and NASCAR coverage. Dell, a Connecticut native, will begin working for NESN in February.

Dell replaces Heidi Watney, who left NESN last year after four seasons to take a job covering the Los Angeles Lakers. I can't profess to being too familiar with Dell's work, but I'm guessing her career path will be similar to Watney's. An early struggle to get her bearings, plenty of doubts from hardcore baseball fans, followed by blossoming into a pretty good reporter once a few years spent on the beat bears fruit.

Come to think of it, that's a path that most writers and reporters take when they graduate to the big leagues. The only difference is that most writers and reporters don't have half of the Boston College dorms pawing through her Facebook photos before they even submit one piece of work.

Good luck, Jenny.

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