New York (AP) – Jen Paul She will be the first woman to umpire in major league baseball this weekend as she plays a game between the Miami Marlins and the Atlanta Braves.
Pawol will open the base at Truist Park’s Doubleheader on Saturday and Plate on Sunday, with MLB telling the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Paul, 48, from New Jersey. I worked on a spring training game 2024 and this year. She will be her fifth judge to debut this year.
“Baseball did an amazing job of being completely inclusive,” said Dave Roberts, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. “I’m watching. It’s good for the game.”
The MLB move comes 10 years after the NFL hired its first full-time female staff, three years after the Men’s Soccer World Cup hired female referees, and 28 years after the NBA broke the gender barrier for gamers in the NBA. The NHL had no female staff yet.
Pawol in 2024 became the first woman to hear the Big League spring training game since Ria Cortesio in 2007. Cortecio spent nine years in minor leagues, including the last five of the Double-A Southern League, and was released after the 2007 season.
Pawol was New Jersey’s all-state softball and soccer player for three seasons in each of the sports at West Milford High School. She went to Hofstra on a softball scholarship, became the pick for three all-conferences, and was on the National Baseball Team of American Baseball Women in 2001.
Pawol received his master’s degree, lives in the Binghamton area of New York, taking a certified teacher class at Elmira College, but still played by side.
“I wasn’t really satisfied,” she said last year. “I just got my corrections away from my competitive career and playing locally, and I wasn’t getting my corrections. And I see the referees and I think that’s what it is. I have to go for it.”
After umpireing NCAA softball in 2010-16, she participated in the MLB Umpire Tryout Camp in 2015, invited to the umpire training academy in Vero Beach, Florida, and was offered a job in the Gulf League in 2016. 2023 Triple A Championship Game.
When she worked as a Dallas opener in Vancouver on October 31, 1997, Violet Palmer became the NBA’s first female referee. Shannon East Inn On September 12, 2012, she became the first female on-field official in the NFL. The game in St. Louis, San Diego, will be replaced by regular officials when they are locked out. Sarah Thomas was the first regular woman in the NFL and an official on the field When she served as Line Judge for the Kansas City game in Houston on September 13, 2015.
French Stephanie Flappa Art has arrived The first woman to judge a men’s world cup match She won Costa Rica on December 1, 2022 when she worked in the 4-2 group stage in Germany. Rebecca Walsh became the first umpire in the English Premier League When she hosted Burnley’s 2-0 victory at Fulham on December 23, 2023.
MLB has 76 full-time staff judges and uses crew fillings for openings created by injuries and holidays.
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Walker is a retired AP baseball writer.
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AP Sports Writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb
