MLB’s first female umpire just received the call of a lifetime

For the first time in nearly 150 years of Major League Baseball, a female umpire will work a regular-season game. Jen Pawol, a 48-year-old former college softball player from New Jersey, will call outs on the bases for two games of a doubleheader Saturday between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves. On Sunday she will stand behind home plate and call balls and strikes.

She isn’t shying away from the moment.

“I really am aware of it. I’m aware of the gravity. I’m aware of the magnitude,” Pawol said. “I believe I’m going to be a really good steward and representative for young girls and women — and boys and men — that this is possible.”

While celebration is only natural, it is worth pointing out that MLB only narrowly avoided having robots call balls and strikes before a woman. The NBA introduced its first female referees almost three decades ago. The NFL has trusted women to officiate for 10 years. The men’s FIFA World Cup used its first all-female crew in Qatar in 2022. Pawol, an umpire in the minor leagues for nearly a decade, is the closest MLB has come. But most glass ceilings are overdue for shattering. Better shards fly late than never.

“This historic accomplishment in baseball is a reflection of Jen’s hard work, dedication and love of the game. She has earned this opportunity, and we are proud of the strong example she has set, particularly for all the women and young girls who aspire to roles on the field,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my congratulations to Jen and her family on this milestone.”

Even in a system she has described as fair and pleasantly inclusive, Pawol had to wait her turn. All up-and-coming umpires do. As with most jobs in the big leagues, even those that draw scrutiny and ridicule, no one wants to give them up. Breaking into the majors can take a lifetime.

So when Pawol, weary of umpiring high school and college softball games in Upstate New York, bought a ticket to Ted Barrett’s Georgia umpiring clinic in 2015, she was about as far from the big leagues as any person can be. But Barrett, who umpired in the majors from 1994 to 2022, helped her find some of MLB’s open clinics.

She earned a scholarship to umpiring school. By 2016, she had earned a job in the low-level Gulf Coast League. By 2023 she had performed so well she was selected to umpire the Class AAA championship and get a run in the prestigious Arizona Fall League. Last year, she umpired major-league spring training games for the first time.

In other words, 10 years and a steady rise through the minor leagues later, she is a member of an umpiring generation that is as well vetted by modern data as any has ever been — and she has performed so well that she was named to a list of 17 Class AAA umpires MLB felt it could trust as substitutes for major-league games this year.

So she knew it was possible that she would get a call such as this. She did not know it would come Wednesday morning, as she sat in a Nashville hotel room sipping coffee before working a Class AAA game that night. When MLB officials Rich Rieker and Matt McKendry joined her on a conference call, she was not stoic.

“It was super emotional to finally be living that phone call that I’d been hoping for and working towards for quite a while,” Pawol said. “I just felt super full, like a fully charged battery ready to go. I’m super excited.”

After she got the news, she had to share it. She called longtime big-league umpire Chris Guccione, whom she had worked with in the past, to tell him she would be joining his crew this weekend.

“He was yelling with excitement on the phone. Just screaming on the phone,” Pawol said. “I was screaming. We were both yelling. ‘We’re doing it! This is awesome! Let’s go!’ Just at the top of our lungs.”

Pawol also had another person to reach: former minor-league umpire Pam Postema, who made it to Class AAA in the late 1980s only to find Major League Baseball had no place for her. The last time Pawol saw her was after she was promoted to Class AAA and Postema took her to dinner. That evening, the woman who had come closest to breaking this barrier before had one message for Pawol: “Get it done.”

“I texted her, ‘I’m getting it done,’” Pawol said. “I’m sure she’s going to be watching. Support like that, keeping the fire burning and passion burning, has been huge for me, and I’m so grateful.”

Her gratitude manifests itself in a constant stream of allusions to other women in the profession. There are six women umpiring in the minors these days, all working to follow the same track of Pawol. Next on her agenda is a full-time major-league umpiring role, one that would require the departure of current umpires to clear the way for up-and-comers. Clearly, given her call-up this weekend, she is on the short list for a promotion when the opportunity presents itself. But that moment is not here yet.

What is here, in this moment, is the kind of serendipity baseball always seems to deliver to those willing to survive its grind: It was 10 years ago that Pawol attended Barrett’s umpiring clinic, the date of which she still remembers — Aug. 15, 2015. That clinic, like the games she will umpire this weekend, was in Atlanta. She did not know then that a woman could pursue a career in umpiring. Women will not have to wonder about that now.

“That’s what we want young girls to believe now. So many of the minor-league [umpires] and major-league [umpires] I work with have” the idea of this being a career, Pawol said. “ … Charlie Reliford, my supervisor, he sold his car to go to umpiring school back then because he knew it was a path — he had a shot if he went to umpire school. No, I wouldn’t have thought [I could do this]. Jen Pawol at 15? Not a chance. But I really hope we’re able to update that mind.”