MLB makes history by calling up its first female umpire, Jen Pawol, for Marlins-Braves games

MLB has made history by calling up its first female umpire, Jen Pawol, to call games between the Marlins and Braves this weekend.

Pawol, 48, became the first woman to work a spring training game since 2007 when she earned the chance to officiate the Grapefruit League opener between the Astros and Nationals last year. 

She will work the bases in Saturday´s Miami-Atlanta doubleheader at Truist Park and the plate on Sunday, MLB said on Wednesday.

The New Jersey native, who umpired NCAA softball from 2010-16, attended an MLB umpire tryout camp in 2015 and was invited to the Umpire Training Academy - leading to a job in in the Gulf Coast League the following year.

She's been working in the minor leagues ever since.

'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.'

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. But she felt that something was missing.

'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.'

MLB´s move comes 28 years after the gender barrier for game officials was broken in the NBA, 10 years after it ended the NFL and three years after the men´s soccer World Cup employed a female referee. The NHL still has not had any women on-ice officials.

'This is a viable career becoming a professional umpire – men and women, girls and boys,' Pawol said last year. 

'I didn't know that the first several years when I got into umpiring in amateur ball for 10 years.'

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