UPDATED: Pawol is MLB’s first female umpire

Jen Pawol was in her hotel room in Nashville, Tenn., when she got the call she had awaited for a decade.

She was going to make her major league debut this weekend, becoming the first female umpire in a century and a half of big league baseball.

“I was overcome with emotion,” Pawol recalled Thursday, Aug. 7, two days before she broke a gender barrier when she worked the bases during Miami’s doubleheader at Atlanta. “It was super emotional to finally be living that phone call that I’d been hoping for and working towards for quite a while, and I just felt super full - I feel like a fully charged battery ready to go.”

Her voice quavering with emotion, Pawol, who grew up in West Milford, talked about getting the news during a conference call Wednesday, Aug. 6 with director of umpire development Rich Rieker and vice president of umpire operations Matt McKendry.

Pawol thought back to her long road. In the early 1990s at West Milford High School, she had a summer conversation with Lauren Rissmeyer, the third baseman on the school’s softball team.

“’Do you want to come umpire with me?’” Pawol remembered being asked. “I didn’t think twice about it. Lauren’s doing it, so I’m going to do it.”

Pawol’s pay was $15 a game.

“She took a field and I took a field,” Pawol said. “It was a one-umpire system. I had no idea what I was doing, but I got to put gear on and call balls and strikes, so I was in.”

‘Like a sponge’

A 1995 graduate at West Milford, which inducted her into its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022, Pawol became a three-time all-conference softball selection pick at Hofstra.

After umpiring NCAA softball from 2010-16, she was approached by then-big league ump Ted Barrett at an umpire camp in Binghamton, N.Y., in early 2015.

“Moreso than any female that I’d seen, she looked like she could handle the rigors of the job physically,” Barrett said Aug. 7. “But what impressed me was her willingness to learn. She seemed like a sponge, everything that we were teaching her. I’m proud that I made her aware of the opportunity.”

Barrett invited Pawol to attend a clinic in Atlanta, then a MLB tryout camp at Cincinnati that Aug. 15. He invited her to dinner in Atlanta with fellow big league umps Paul Nauert and Marvin Hudson and their wives.

“I warned her: `Look, this is what you’re up against. It’s going to be 10 years in the minor leagues before you sniff a big big field,’” Barrett said.

Pawol was among 38 hopefuls invited to the Umpire Training Academy at Vero Beach, Fla., and started her pro umpiring career in the Gulf Coast League on June 24, 2016, working the plate when the GCL Tigers West played at the GCL Blue Jays.

She moved up to the New York/Penn League in 2017, the Midwest League after the first two weeks of the 2018 season, then worked the South Atlantic League in 2019, the High-A Midwest League in 2021, the Double-A Eastern League and the Triple-A International and Pacific Coast Leagues in 2023. She was called in for big league spring training in 2024 and ‘25.

“This has been over 1,200 minor league games, countless hours of video review trying to get better, and underneath it all has just been this passion and this love for the game of baseball,” she said. “This started in my playing days as a catcher and transformed over into an umpire, and I think it’s gotten even stronger as an umpire. Umpiring is for me, it’s in my DNA. It’s been a long, hard journey.”

‘Getting it done’

Among eight female umpires currently in the minors, she joined Chris Guccione’s crew in Atlanta, where she expects about 30 family and friends. She worked the bases during the doubleheader Saturday, Aug. 9 and will call balls and strikes Sunday, Aug. 10.

Pawol was at third base Aug. 6 as Jacksonville beat Nashville in the International League when Sounds third baseman Oliver Dunn congratulated her.

“If I make it to the big leagues,” he told her, “we will have both worked all the levels together.”

Pawol repeatedly thanked her minor league umpiring predecessors, mentioning several who exchanged calls or texts, including Christine Wren, Pam Postema and Ria Cortesio. Just after her promotion to Triple-A, Pawol met with Postema in Las Vegas.

“The last thing she said to me when I saw her was: Get it done!” Powal explained. “So I texted her yesterday and said, `I’m getting it done!’”

Barrett will be watching from Oregon, where he is attending Northwest League games this weekend.

“The hopes of this are that it inspires,” he said. ”Who knows, there’ll be a young lady watching the game on TV and says, `Hey, I’d like to try that.’ ”

Gender barriers fall

In the announcement that Pawol would become the first woman to umpire in Major League Baseball (MLB), baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said, “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.”

MLB’s move comes 28 years after the gender barrier for game officials was broken in the NBA, 10 years after the NFL hired its first full-time female official and three years after the men’s soccer World Cup employed a female referee. The NHL still has not had any women as on-ice officials.

“Baseball’s done a great job of being completely inclusive,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I’ll be watching. It’s good for the game.”

Toronto pitcher Kevin Gausman said, “I think if she is a good enough umpire, obviously she deserves to be here.”

In 2024, Pawol 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.

“We had seen her in spring training a lot,” Philadelphia Phillies star Trea Turner said. “I don’t know much about her or statistics or anything like that, but if she’s doing a great job, I love seeing the opportunity for her, and I’m happy for her. I talked to her a little bit in spring training and she seems like a great person and I wish her all the best.”

Violet Palmer became the NBA’s first female referee when she worked Dallas’ opener at Vancouver on Oct. 31, 1997. Shannon Eastin became the NFL’s first female on-field official on Sept. 9, 2012, for San Diego’s game at St. Louis as a replacement when regular officials were locked out, and Sarah Thomas was the NFL’s first regular female on-field official when she served as line judge for Kansas City’s game at Houston on Sept. 13, 2015.

Stéphanie Frappart of France became the first woman to referee a men’s World Cup game when she worked Germany’s 4-2 group stage win over Costa Rica on Dec. 1, 2022, and Rebecca Welch became the first to referee in England’s Premier League when she officiated Burnley’s 2-0 win at Fulham on Dec. 23, 2023.

MLB has 76 full-time staff umpires and uses fill-ins on crews for openings created by injuries and vacations.