MLB is calling up its first female umpire

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ASPartOfMe
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07 Aug 2025, 2:16 pm

MLB's move comes 28 years after the gender barrier for game officials was broken in the NBA, 10 years after it ended in the NFL and three years after the men's soccer World Cup employed a female referee

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Jen Pawol is set to become the first woman to umpire in Major League Baseball when she works games this weekend between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves.

Pawol will work the bases in Saturday's doubleheader at Truist Park and the plate on Sunday, MLB said Wednesday.

Pawol, a 48-year-old from New Jersey, worked spring training games in 2024 and this year.

Pawol in 2024 became the first woman to umpire big league spring training games since Ria Cortesio in 2007. Cortesio spent nine years in the minor leagues, including the last five in the Double-A Southern League, then was released after the 2007 season.

Pawol was an all-state softball and soccer player in New Jersey for three seasons in each sport at West Milford High School. She went to Hofstra on a softball scholarship and became a three-time all-conference pick and was on the USA Baseball women's national baseball team in 2001.

Pawol got a master's degree and was living in the Binghamton area of New York and taking teacher certification classes at Elmira College while still playing on the side.

"I wasn't really satisfied," she said last year. "Coming off of a huge competitive career, just playing locally, I wasn't getting my fix. And I remember looking at the umpire and being like, I think that's it. I got to go for that."

After umpiring NCAA softball from 2010-16, she attended an MLB umpire tryout camp in 2015, was invited to the Umpire Training Academy at Vero Beach, Florida, and was offered a job in the Gulf Coast League in 2016.


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cyberdora
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07 Aug 2025, 4:58 pm

this is news?



ASPartOfMe
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07 Aug 2025, 9:44 pm

cyberdora wrote:
this is news?

Any first time is news


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cyberdora
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08 Aug 2025, 2:18 am

^^^ no I mean is this really all that earth shattering? it's a referee, nobody cares or will remember?



ASPartOfMe
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08 Aug 2025, 10:42 am

cyberdora wrote:
^^^ no I mean is this really all that earth shattering? it's a referee, nobody cares or will remember?

Earth shattering no but people do care about this sort of thing.


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lostonearth35
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08 Aug 2025, 1:05 pm

The umpire or referee is the one person everyone else hates and blames them for everything. It's like the poem "Casey at the Bat", where the fans all yell "Kill the umpire!", even though it was Casey's fault for being full of hubris.

So if the umpire is female, the woman haters will blame her even worse for anything the players do.



ASPartOfMe
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08 Aug 2025, 1:37 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
The umpire or referee is the one person everyone else hates and blames them for everything. It's like the poem "Casey at the Bat", where the fans all yell "Kill the umpire!", even though it was Casey's fault for being full of hubris.

So if the umpire is female, the woman haters will blame her even worse for anything the players do.

It will take the form of fans judging her every call as wrong and sexist references.

“Kill the ump” came from an era when there was little reason to believe people would take it literally.


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old_comedywriter
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08 Aug 2025, 2:09 pm

So, has Trump "ordered" MLB to fire her yet???


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ASPartOfMe
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08 Aug 2025, 9:02 pm

old_comedywriter wrote:
So, has Trump "ordered" MLB to fire her yet???

I am sure they took that into account before promoting her.


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enz
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08 Aug 2025, 9:03 pm

about dahm time

gender doesn't affect being able to umpire in baseball