A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For the first time in history, a woman is set to umpire a Major League Baseball game this weekend. Jen Pawol is a former softballer who also played on the USA Baseball women's national team in 2001. And when she works Saturday's doubleheader in Atlanta between the Braves and Miami Marlins, she'll shatter one of the most durable gender barriers in professional sports.
Keith Law is here to size up what all this means. He covers the MLB for The Athletic. So, Keith, MLB - Major League Baseball - is going out of its way to talk about how big of a deal this is, but other pro sports have done this for years - the NFL and the NBA. What took baseball so long?
KEITH LAW: Yeah, we're late, and it's a little ironic to me to see MLB celebrating this so much when we're so far behind. There are a lot of structural barriers within Major League Baseball for women and for minorities of all sorts. Baseball has just generally been pretty retrograde on these fronts. And also, it takes a long time for - just speaking specifically of women in umpiring, it takes a very long time for those biases to work their way out of the system. Pawol had to spend many years working from the lowest levels of the minors, starting in the Complex League, to get all the way up to AAA where she was umpiring this year when she got the call. And that is - I do think that makes baseball different from other sports. We have this extensive minor league system that doesn't just apply to players. It applies to umpires. In a sense, it also applies to people trying to work in coaching, for example. That's why we don't see...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
LAW: ...Many women coaches in the majors.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, to be clear, is Major League Baseball giving Pawol a full-time job here, or is she just kind of subbing for the weekend?
LAW: No. Like a pitcher getting called up from AAA to make a spot...
MARTÍNEZ: OK.
LAW: ...Start, she is up for the weekend because the rules require a fifth umpire for doubleheaders.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So just to fill in, at least for now. You know, Keith, I know you cover Major League Baseball. You also cover the minors. So you're following baseball player prospects. And, you know, the way I assume it works is if a player's hitting a bunch of home runs, that's probably a sign that they're ready for the majors. But what does a minor league umpire have to do to show that they're ready for the majors?
LAW: There are various things they're judged on. One of them is their - now that there are - there's Statcast technology in a lot of ballparks. They can be measured on the accuracy of their ball-strike calls. They do get graded on those, on accuracy of other calls on the field. There are also reports back from coaches, minor league managers, et cetera, on how well they're handling the games. And Major League Baseball - probably the biggest thing is Major League Baseball has people going around to various games to - they're watching everything. Obviously, they're watching the quality of play, but they're...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
LAW: Many of them are specifically watching how are the umpires handling it 'cause at some minor league levels, there's only two of them on the field. So they have quite a bit more to do.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, wow. So I was going to ask you if there's a lot of female umpiring talent out there in the minors.
LAW: There actually is. Just about two weeks ago, I was at a game in Salisbury, Maryland, and it was a two-person crew, and the home plate umpire was a woman. And it's not as remarkable as it would've been five or 10 years ago, but the - she did an excellent job, actually. I thought her strike zone was good, and she handled some sort of - let's just say on-field conflicts...
MARTÍNEZ: Oh.
LAW: ...Particularly well.
MARTÍNEZ: One last thing, Keith, really quick. Short on time here. But eventually, is this all going to matter because machines are going to be the umpires in Major League Baseball at some point? We're not going to see many people on the field.
LAW: We're going to see ball strikes - balls and strikes called by machine pretty soon, I think. But I do think, ultimately, there will still be plenty of work for female umpires to do because of all the other things that umpires are asked to do on a baseball field.
MARTÍNEZ: Someone's got to argue with the umpires, right? Keith Law is a baseball writer for The Athletic. Keith, thanks.
LAW: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASEBALL DIAMOND")
BEACH HOUSE: (Singing) The baseball diamond. Oh. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
