It's High Time For Women Umpires In MLB
In today's issue, we look at the lack of women umpires in professional baseball, especially at the Major League level, and who might be in the pipeline.
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . After Bernice Gera initially paved the way for female umpires in 1972, Christine Wren became the second woman to umpire a professional baseball game in 1975 when she officiated an exhibition game between the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Unlike Gera, Wren ended up working as a professional umpire for several years in the Class A Northwest League and the Class A Midwest League before moving on to other jobs.
. . . On Dec. 29, ESPN reported that 10 MLB umpires, including seven crew chiefs, are planning to retire before the start of the 2023 season, which marks the largest MLB umpire turnover in a single offseason since 1999. Those 10 umps are Ted Barrett, Greg Gibson, Tom Hallion, Sam Holbrook, Jerry Meals, Jim Reynolds, Bill Welke, Marty Foster, Paul Nauert and Tim Timmons. Though MLB will promote 10 new umpires to take their place, it is unlikely that Jen Pawol, a woman currently umpiring in Double-A, will be making the jump in 2023 to become the first woman ump in MLB history.
Leading Off
A Baseball Blindspot: Where Are the Women Umpires?
By Bill Pruden
While the 2022 Major League Baseball season started late due to the lockout, as the season progressed, observers noticed one aspect of the game that was substantially improving -- the increased involvement of women. In fact, 2022 saw an impressive number of firsts that made clear that the sport had come a long way from the days when Ladies Days seemed the only bow the game made to the nation’s majority population.
Indeed, whether it was Rachel Balkovec managing the Tampa Tarpons (the New York Yankees’ Single-A team), Alyssa Nakken serving as the San Francisco Giants’ first-base coach, Alexis Hopkins being drafted by the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes in the Atlantic League (the highest level of professional baseball excluding MLB), Kelsie Whitmore playing in an MLB-affiliated league, or any of the other recent precedent-setting firsts, the sound of cracking glass could be heard across the baseball landscape, making it clear that women were fully ready to assume a prominent role in the baseball.
And yet as we look to 2023, there remains a giant hole in the presence of women in baseball: umpiring.
On June 24, 1972, ironically the day after President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law, Bernice Gera became the first female umpire in professional baseball, working a Class A game between the Geneva Senators and the Auburn Twins. It was an opportunity she earned only after a successful sex discrimination lawsuit, and it was the only pro game she ever worked, so negative was the response and so unsupportive was the baseball community.
That attitude has lingered as a cloud over the game as the number of women who have followed in Gera’s footsteps has been extremely limited, an embarrassment to anyone who claims that baseball is truly the national pastime.
There have been some trailblazers, but the attention they have garnered reflects their rarity. The most famous is Pam Postema, who became the third woman to serve as an umpire in professional baseball when she appeared in the rookie Gulf Coast League in 1977. Like those before and since, she had survived the rigors of the established umpire schools -- simply being accepted is an accomplishment and a major hurdle.
Postema then spent the next 13 seasons in the Minor Leagues, pursuing her dream of becoming a Major League umpire. She spent years living on the road, getting by on low pay and enduring the sexist abuse that only added to the standard indignities faced by both male and female umpires, all in pursuit of a dream.
Postema was frequently mentioned as a prospect for the Majors and became the first woman to umpire an MLB Spring Training game, which earned her the cover of Sports Illustrated. But in December 1989, after 13 years of Minor League umpiring -- six at the Triple-A level -- the Triple-A Alliance canceled Postema's contract, ending her dream.
In 1991, declaring, "I believe I belong in the Major Leagues. If it weren't for the fact that I'm a woman, I would be there right now," she filed a sex discrimination suit against MLB. The case was settled out of court, and in 1992 Postema published a book entitled You've Gotta Have Balls to Make It In This League.
Things have not gotten much better in the subsequent three decades. Some point to institutional changes -- like the addition of separate women’s umpires dressing rooms in new Minor League ballparks -- as evidence of a new sensitivity to the fact that there are women who want to be umpires at the highest level. The numbers tell a different story, even though, in an ironic twist, as the recruiting of people -- of any gender -- to become umpires has become more difficult, the Minor Leagues have begun targeting women to try increasing their pool of prospective umpires.
The reality is that in 2022, there were only two women, Jen Pawol and Isabella Robb, umpiring in the Minor Leagues. And according to Minor League Baseball, they are two of only nine who have ever umpired in the Minors. It is not an encouraging number, and yet despite the challenges, they continue to pursue their dream.
Indeed, while seeking to go unnoticed, Pawol is clear in her ambition, declaring, "Every Minor League umpire has the one goal: to be part of the three percent that gets hired for Major League Baseball. … This is literally all every Minor League umpire wants to do with the rest of their life."
The hurdles to get there are obvious and many. MLB umpires are members of a union, and MLB is not openly interested in pushing the union to open up its doors. No less a hurdle is the limited number of umpire schools, whose classes often include a single woman at most. And of course, graduation does not guarantee a job for men or women. Like baseball itself, there are a limited number of spots, and so any aspiring umpire must wait for a retirement for an opening. It is a daunting prospect, and yet Pawol, who is seen as the leading candidate to be MLB’s first female umpire, soldiers on, pursuing a dream fueled by a passion.
Her career illustrates the challenges that any aspiring female MLB umpire faces. Following a decorated collegiate softball career, Pawol turned to umpiring, something she had been doing for years before she learned that a position with an MLB-affiliated league was even possible. But she had grown tired of umpiring baseball games in upstate New York and Division I college softball in New York and New England. She had grown tired of the local circuit with its per-game pay. She recalls wanting something bigger -- a contract, and perhaps most importantly, a career.
Discovering in 2015 that the New York high school baseball association sponsored an annual clinic with Major League umpires, she jumped at the chance to attend. After learning about the additional clinics that lead to camps that can lead to the umpiring schools, she was on her way. Her early efforts aided her selection for the MiLB Advanced Course, where top candidates from the Umpire Training Academy qualify for further training.
Her strong performances kept her moving up the ladder so that in 2016 she became the Gulf Coast League’s first female umpire since 1978, and the first female umpire in MiLB since 2007. She now boasts a résumé that has her on the brink of breaking yet another of the game’s glass ceilings if the opportunity presents itself.
At the same time, never forgetting the challenges she faced, Pawol has long looked beyond herself and her career. She has worked at different levels of the game and offered her own camps and clinics for girls. Determined to increase the gender diversity in the game, she has mentored women to prepare them for the umpire schools. She speaks at conferences and coaches conventions in the hope of increasing the number of women in the umpiring ranks.
In a March 2021 Op-Ed in the Washington Post, former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent noted that the recent Super Bowl had an officiating team that included a woman, Sarah Thomas, while also noting that in 2018 the US military included 63 female admirals and generals. Vincent closed by asserting that it was “time for the national pastime to put women in command on big league ball fields.” Time indeed!
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.