Fifty Years Since Bernice Gera Made Baseball History As First Female Umpire
ALSO: MLB ORDERS STRICT PREPARATIONS OF GAME-DAY BASEBALLS
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Unforeseen injuries are the one thing that can slow the Dodger juggernaut. Over the past few weeks, the Dodgers have lost Walker Buehler, Edwin Ríos and now MVP contender Mookie Betts, injured in an outfield collision with Cody Bellinger. Dustin May is recovering from Tommy John surgery and Blake Treinen and Tommy Kahnle have also been sidelined for over a month . . .
While the San Francisco Giants lead the majors with 12 bunt hits, infielder Wilmer Flores leads the majors in batting with two outs and runners in scoring position . . .
Miami ace Sandy Alcantara, a strong contender for the NL’s Cy Young Award, has one Achilles heel: he doesn’t hold runners well, allowing more stolen bases (11) through last Sunday than any other pitcher in the league . . .
Reid Detmers, an April hero with a no-hitter for the Angels, is back in the minors . . .
Winds blowing in from Lake Michigan nullified four Braves drives that figured to clear the Wrigley Field fences last weekend, resulting in a 1-0 defeat that ended a 14-game Atlanta winning streak and 10-game Chicago losing streak . . .
Justin Verlander may be 39 but he’s obviously healed from Tommy John surgery, allowing seven runs over an eight-start stretch earlier this season . . .
Verlander was a Braves fan growing up but spurned a chance to sign with Atlanta last winter, preferring to remain in Houston . . .
It may never happen again but Freddie Freeman and Braves successor Matt Olson both knocked in five runs Tuesday in separate games for L.A. and Atlanta . . .
At age 37, Houston’s Yuli Gurriel tied Barry Bonds as the oldest first-time batting king and joined Tony Oliva as the second Cuban batting champ.
Leading Off
Pioneering Umpire Bernice Gera: For the Love of the Game
By Bill Pruden
Fifty years ago today, on June 24, 1972, the day after President Richard M. Nixon signed the groundbreaking Title IX into law, an extended legal battle ended in Geneva, New York as Bernice Gera became the first woman to umpire a professional baseball game.
Born on June 15, 1931, Pennsylvania native Bernice Shiner had grown up playing sandlot baseball—where she earned a reputation as the girl who could outhit the boys—and she was a member of her high school softball team. Following graduation and desirous of staying involved with the game she loved, Shiner sought jobs with Major League Baseball teams but her efforts were unsuccessful. She soon married Steve Gera, a freelance photographer, and worked as a secretary while the couple lived in Jackson Heights, NY.
Her love for the game remained strong. She would regularly share that passion with local disadvantaged children, taking groups of kids to see the New York Mets or buying gloves for a group with whom she would then head to a local park to hit balls to the enthusiastic youngsters. She also honed her skills at the local amusement parks. In fact, so talented was Gera that she was banned from the pitching booth at Coney Island after winning hundreds of stuffed animals – winnings that the child of divorce, a woman who had lived with numerous relatives growing up, donated to a shelter for unwanted children.
Suddenly at 35, that passion and desire to be involved with the game was transformed into a determination to be an umpire, a path that Bernice hoped would allow her to fulfill her dream. She had done some umpiring in local leagues when she was younger and since it was less high profile, she thought it might be less of a distraction, and might even attract some additional fans. It was, she hoped, a combination that would make it an opportunity more open to a female.
With the support of her husband, she took the plunge. However, she quickly discovered that the road to being an umpire would include its own share of obstacles. Indeed, her applications to umpire schools were met by rejection after rejection, and the one school that accepted "Bernie Gera" quickly rescinded the offer upon learning that “Bernie” was, in fact, Bernice. Finally, in 1967, she was able to enroll in Jim Finley's Umpire School in Tampa, Florida. Given that she was the first woman in the program there was no available housing and while she spent most of the six-week course living in a local motel, she was basically shunned by her fellow students. But she persevered, received good reports on her performances, and graduated with honors.
Gera began umpiring in semi-pro leagues before receiving a contract from the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL) to work in the Class A Short-Season New York-Penn League. However, shortly before she was to begin work, she received a telegram from the president of the NAPBL informing her that her contract was “disapproved and invalid.” The organization asserted that she did not meet the physical requirements of the job, arguing specifically that she was too old, too short, and did not weigh enough to withstand the grind of umpiring. Her previous experience as an umpire for the National Baseball Congress in Bridgeton, NJ was dismissed.
But the fire that had been building since she patrolled the outfield back on the sandlots in Ernest, Pennsylvania, the love of a game that had led her to spend six lonely weeks in a Florida motel was not so easily extinguished. In March 1969, Bernice Gera filed a sex discrimination suit with the New York Human Rights Commission, alleging that she was denied a position as an umpire because of her sex. In a telling sign of the attitudes of the time, the League’s president defended the decision by saying that her application had been rejected because of the foul language she would have to face on the field and the fact that the league did not have a sufficient number of single-sex dressing rooms to accommodate her.
While the litigation would drag on, finally in January 1972, by a 5-2 vote of the New York Court of Appeals, Gera won her suit against the NAPBL. In April of that same year, she was given a contract to work in the New York Penn League, at that time a short-season A league. Bernice Gera made her debut on June 24, 1972, in the first game of a doubleheader between the Philadelphia Phillies minor league club, the Auburn Phillies, and the Texas Rangers' affiliate, the Geneva Senators.
After the national attention that her lawsuit had garnered, the game itself was in many ways anti-climactic. At the same time, both the game, as well as her experience, highlighted just how big had been the challenge Gera had faced. Indeed, notwithstanding the legal stamp of approval that her effort had received, the chill in the pre-game umpires meeting made clear that she was not welcomed, and when she reversed an initial call on an attempted double play, she was left feeling isolated and alone. That feeling was only reinforced when the call was challenged vehemently by Phillies manager Nolan Campbell, who not only questioned the decision, but told her that she “should be in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.” To the surprise of few, the outburst earned the outspoken manager an ejection.
Feeling alone and abandoned, in the aftermath of the first game Bernice Gera walked into the office of Senators manager Joe McDonough and resigned. Although slated to umpire behind home plate in the second game, the accumulated abuse stemming from the lawsuit and the clear message of antipathy and the lack of support from her peers left her feeling that she would never be accepted and that there was no place for her in the game—at least not in that capacity. As her husband later recounted, “Bernice would always say, ‘I could beat them in the courts, but I can't beat them on the field.’”
As she walked away from umpiring Gera was adamant that her efforts had not, as some alleged, been a publicity stunt, nor had she wanted to be a pioneer. And to those who criticized her for abandoning the effort, who said that her action would close the door to others, she resignedly asked how you could close a door that was never truly open. All she had wanted was to be a part of a game she loved. But she recognized all too quickly that the feeling was not reciprocated, at least not in that context. All she had been looking for was a way to be a part of a game she loved. In fact, she was subsequently able to stay connected to the game through a position in the public relations department of the Mets.
Bernice Gera, professional baseball’s first female umpire died of kidney cancer in 1992 in Pembroke Pines, Florida at the age of 61. In the end, as disappointing as her own experience had been, she could take some comfort in the fact that she had cracked open the door a little, and while no woman has yet umpired in the Major Leagues, the increasing numbers in the minors can all trace their paths back to the pioneering efforts of Bernice Gera.
Bill Pruden is a high school history and government teacher who has been a baseball fan for six decades. He has been writing about baseball--primarily through SABR sponsored platforms, but also in some historical works--for about a decade. His email address is: courtwatchernc@aol.com.
Cleaning Up
Baseball Bigwigs Issue New Directive Governing Pre-Game Preparations
By Dan Schlossberg
Earlier this week, Major League Baseball issued a memo about baseballs to all 30 clubs.
Entitled “Updates to Baseball Storage & Handling,” the directive followed complaints from pitchers, coaches, and managers about slickness of baseballs. It was sent not only to general managers and their aides but to clubhouse guys responsible for storing baseballs and making sure they are rubbed with special mud before use.
Each of the 30 teams must store balls in a humidor — a contraption designed to protect them from excessive humidity.
Once used only by the Denver-based Colorado Rockies, which introduced it in 2002, the humidor was adopted in 2019 by the Arizona Diamondbacks, who play home games in a high desert that is actually the second highest altitude in the major leagues.
The humidor was used by 10 teams last year before it, like the designated hitter, became universal this season.
Baseball rules require teams to store balls in a humidor at least 14 days before use in a game, with details of storage monitored and certified by each clubhouse manager.
Balls are not permitted out of the humidor for more than two hours at any point before the first pitch of the game in which they will be used.
The directive also contains requirements for rubbing the slick white balls with mud, using a specific mud-to-water ratio. That mud must be applied for at least 30 seconds so that it covers the entire surface of each ball.
Then balls must be returned to their original Rawlings box, with dividers separating them. Up to 96 balls may be taken from the boxes 15-30 minutes before game time.
The directive was sent following a video review of each team’s ball-rubbing procedures.
Needless to say, Major League Baseballs is getting sticky about its main element. Pine tar usage has been restricted for years [ask George Brett] and umpires have been empowered to check pitchers for “sticky substances” since last June 21.
No matter what the Office of the Commissioner does, however, a plethora of problems persists. There are not only more balls leaving the park lately but also more hit batsmen, as pitchers can’t seem to get good grips on the balls they’re throwing.
Helped in part by elbow guards that protrude prominently, hitters are getting plunked at record rates. The New York Mets, for example, had 19 hit batsmen in their first 20 games. The record for batters hit-by-pitch is less than a year old, with the 2021 Cincinnati Reds recording 105.
Striking a proper and fair balance between offense and defense — and especially between hitters and pitchers — has always been a balancing act for the bigwigs who make and supervise the rules. It’s just become a little more challenging this year.
Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ began covering baseball long before the humidor, designated hitter, divisional races, wild-cards, interleague games, or analytics arrived on the scene. Still, he managed to write 40 baseball books and cover the game for forbes.com, Latino Sports, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, and Sports Collectors Digest. E.mail him via ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
How stupid are the fans picking the All-Star lineups? Fernando Tatis, Jr., who hasn’t played an inning all year, ranks fifth among NL shortstops . . .
The first time a pair of American League pinch-hitters homered in the same game was on May 26, 1937, when Cleveland’s Billy Sullivan and Bruce Campbell performed the feat . . .
Ty Cobb was the first player to amass 1,000 extra-base hits . . .
Jimmie Foxx was the first player of the Modern Era to hit four straight home runs but they didn’t come in the same game . . .
Keith Hernandez was elected to the Mets Hall of Fame in 2017 but his No. 17 won’t be retired until July 9 of this season . . .
Speaking of retired numbers, the Braves should retire Leo Mazzone’s No. 54, currently won by pitching ace Max Fried . . .
When Charlie (Red) Barrett of the Boston Braves needed only 58 pitches to beat the Reds, 2-0, on Aug. 10, 1944, he set the record for the fewest pitches by a starter in a complete game.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Brian Harl [bchrom831@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.