Twenty years ago, two people with microphones, quick wit, and no idea what was ahead walked onto Chase Field. One was a Cubs fan from Chicago who grew up skipping school for baseball games. The other was an Arizona girl sitting in the upper deck years earlier pointing toward the field saying, “I could do that job.”
Now, two decades later, Vanessa Ramirez and Mike Bauer have become part of the soundtrack of Diamondbacks baseball.
If you’ve been to a game at Chase Field, chances are you’ve seen them racing through the concourse with camera crews, hyping the crowds, dancing on dugouts, improvising through technical difficulties, and somehow still making it all look effortless.
“We are celebrating 20 years,” Mike says, laughing. “And she still looks the same as the day we got hired.”
“Thanks,” Vanessa shoots back. “This is why you’re my brother from another mother.”
The chemistry is immediate, like siblings who know exactly how to push each other’s buttons but also exactly how to pull each other through.
“We joke that she’s my sister from another mister,” Mike says.
Long before she became one of the most recognizable faces inside Chase Field, Vanessa was just another fan in the stands.
“I went to a game before I worked for the team and I was sitting up in the 300 level with my friends,” she recalls. “I remember pointing at the former host thinking, ‘I could do that job.’”
Years later, that sentence became reality.
At the time, Vanessa was modeling and doing TV work around Arizona when her agency asked if she’d participate in a Diamondbacks fashion show unveiling new uniforms at Hotel Valley Ho.
“It was technically a free gig. I was like, okay, fine.”
The players were paired with models walking between them onstage. Vanessa remembers standing beside Chris Young while still wearing giant rollers in her hair because makeup wasn’t finished yet.
“I just totally hammed it up,” she says.
Little did she know Diamondbacks executive Rob Weinheimer was watching from the crowd.
“He was like, ‘Who is that girl?’”
A few days later, Vanessa got a call asking her to audition for an in-game host.
“The rest is history,” she says.
Of course, if you were watching reality television in the early 2012s, you may have spotted Vanessa somewhere else, too.
“Yes,” she laughs. “I did a dating show.”
Vanessa appeared on Love in the Wild Season 2 hosted by Jenny McCarthy, on NBC spending time filming in the Dominican Republic while navigating jungle adventures, cameras following her every move, and contestants being dropped into the competition midway through filming.
A few weeks later, Vanessa got a call asking her to audition for an in-game host.
Mike’s path looked completely different.
Growing up outside Chicago, baseball was woven into childhood memories.
“My parents used to write fake sick notes once a year so we could skip school and go to Cubs games,” he says. “It was our family tradition.”
He moved to Arizona to attend ASU for broadcasting and eventually landed in sports radio. One day, after sitting behind the broadcast booth at a Phoenix RoadRunners hockey game, he walked up his resume.
“They told me there wasn’t a position open, but I could volunteer.”
Months later, the team called him back to audition for an in game host role.
“The funny thing is I didn’t even know that job existed.”
One year later, the Diamondbacks were holding open tryouts.
“I had already abandoned my childhood team and was fully rooting for the Diamondbacks every game,” he says. “They had hired Vanessa first and needed a co-host.”
Their first season together was 2007, and neither expected it to last this long.
“I honestly thought we’d get one year and then they’d replace us,” Vanessa admits. “I’ve never done anything for 20 years.”
Yet somehow, season after season, they kept coming back.
And somewhere along the way, Arizona baseball fans started growing up with them.
“There are kids who were playball kids years ago who come up to us now as adults,” Vanessa says. “And they’re like, ‘I used to do the hot dog race with you guys.’”
Mike nods.
“We’ve watched families grow up at the ballpark. We’re on camera for very small moments during the game,” Mike says. “But it’s all the time in between where relationships happen.”
Over the years, fans have invited them to graduation parties, sent Christmas cards, and introduced them to children who now tower over them years later.
“One of my favorite moments,” Mike says, “is seeing a little kid walk into a Major League ballpark for the first time. Their eyes get huge. That moment never gets old.”
Behind the scenes, however, the job is far more chaotic than fans realize.
Before every game, there are production meetings, camera planning, sponsor reads, timing logistics, route mapping, and dozens of moving parts spread across a massive stadium.
“In baseball, you don’t tell time by minutes,” Mike explains. “You tell time by outs.”
Meaning they may have just three outs to sprint from the upper concourse down to the field for the next segment.
And because baseball has no game clock, chaos is always possible.
“A three out inning might take 45 minutes,” Mike says. “Or it might take three minutes.”
They’ve had microphones fail on Opening Day. Fans shove through live shots. Kids take off running into center field during the hot dog race.
“You just roll with it,” Mike says.
For Vanessa, some of the most memorable moments are quieter.
She pauses when talking about her father, who passed away from non-smoker's lung cancer.
“My parents were my everything,” she says softly.
Her dad attended games constantly during those early years.
“He would tell everyone I was the D-Backs girl.”
After his passing, Vanessa launched Breathe to Believe, a fundraiser supporting cancer organizations.
“I didn’t want to sit in sadness,” she says. “I wanted to turn that energy into something good.”
Even now, she still thinks about him walking through Chase Field.
“When they announced our 20th season this year, I got emotional thinking about what my dad would say.”
Her voice catches.
“He’d probably say, ‘You’re doing a good job, kiddo.’”
While fans see the energy, dancing, contests, and laughter at Chase Field, what they don’t always see is the life happening around it.
During part of Vanessa's 20 year run with the Diamondbacks, she was also waking up in the middle of the night to work as a morning traffic anchor on TV.
“There were years where I’d get home from the ballpark at midnight and my alarm would go off at 2:30 in the morning,” Vanessa says.
Mike also had a similar schedule for years hosting sports talk radio shows and now a husband and father, he understands the balancing act differently these days.
“There are times I legitimately miss my family,” he admits. “My wife and I both work, and sometimes our schedules are so opposite that outside of daycare drop-off, we don’t really get family time for days. By the time they’re getting home, I’m already heading to the ballpark.”
Still, both say the job rarely feels like work.
“How can you complain?” Vanessa says. “We get to do cool things for a living.”
And sometimes, those cool things come with National League Championship rings.
When the Diamondbacks made their World Series run in 2023, management surprised Mike and Vanessa with official rings recognizing their years with the organization.
“I thought I was in trouble when they called me,” Vanessa laughs. “Then they said, ‘You get a ring.’”
“It was incredibly meaningful,” Mike says. “leadership fought for us to receive that recognition. We’ll never take that for granted.”
Two decades in, their friendship still drives everything.
“She still asks me what I’m going to say before we go live,” Mike says.
“Because he repeats what I just said!” Vanessa fires back instantly.
And when nerves creep in before a live segment?
“I’ll usually make some dumb joke right before we go on camera,” Mike says. “Just to get her laughing.”
Because after 20 years, instinct takes over.
“If one of us blanks, the other just picks it up,” Vanessa says. “We always have each other’s back.”
And now, the question almost asks itself: do Mike and Vanessa have another 20 years in them?
“As long as they’ll have us,” Vanessa says with a smile, “we’ll be there.”