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Sunday, September 04, 2022
MLB is overdue for a female umpire. One may be on the way.
The first thing to know about Jen Pawol — and listen closely because this is important — is that she would rather no one know much about her at all. Professional umpires are professionally inconspicuous, and women in baseball always have known the key to a life in baseball is the ability to blend.
The second thing to know about Jen Pawol — and this is important, too — is that she someday may become the first woman to umpire a Major League Baseball game. Pawol, 45, would never say that herself. From her perspective, she and the other members of her three-person Class AA umpiring crew are all in the same position, two steps from the majors, on the cusp of living their thankless dreams.
But people like her crewmates Tanner Moore and Kellen Martin have made the journey to the majors before. No woman ever has. So she is not in the same position as they are, even though she says everyone is doing a remarkable job of treating her like she is.
Fifty years after the passage of Title IX, many women are finding their way into baseball roles no one like them has had before. Kim Ng is the general manager of the Miami Marlins. Eve Rosenbaum was just named assistant general manager of the rising Baltimore Orioles. Kelsie Whitmore is playing in the Atlantic League. Alyssa Nakken is a coach for the San Francisco Giants. Rachel Balkovec is managing a New York Yankees minor league affiliate. That list is hardly all-inclusive.
But only nine women have umpired in the minor leagues, according to MLB. Two, Pawol and Isabella Robb, are currently umpiring in the minor leagues. Numerically, she is an outlier. On the field, she is far less so.
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: September 04, 2022 at 04:47 PM | 107 comment(s)
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Anyone who is basing their life plan on being an MLB ump is making a horrendous mistake, much like planning on being a professional athlete.
Obviously you must care, or you wouldn't feel compelled to comment on it.
Anyone who is basing their life plan on being an MLB ump is making a horrendous mistake, much like planning on being a professional athlete.
So much for professional sports, or performing arts, or for any profession without a guaranteed road to success. Let's all just become government workers or cogs in some corporate machine.
Well, one difference between planning to be a professional baseball player and planning to be an ump is you can always make money as an ump. If you fall short of the big leagues, or even the professional ranks, you'll still get paid by someone to call a game.
The headline seems to be the problem, by giving off an impression that may not match reality.
"Hey, Siri, that was outside!"
"Get the @#$% back in the ^&$# box, you @&%$#@!!"
No idea where I'd find half of this stuff now unless I went through game logs and video of every play and no way am I that curious.
How so? Appeals only happen on pitches that the home plate umpire already called a ball. Catchers have no disincentive to appeal those. I would think that would tilt things in favor of "no swing."
How does your strawman appear out of nowhere?
I don't think that's fair Lassus. I think most of us saw a strawman coming.
EDIT: In contrast, union representation for minor leaguers is indeed long overdue.
Excellent setup for my (roughly) annual reminder that the checked swing rules don't actually exist and therefore can't be called correctly or incorrectly!
Keep hand-waving. Add more words. Troll harder.
I assume that in terms of ball/strike fair/foul out/safe, women and men are interchangable. But thats not all of an MLB umpire's job.
The fat old out of shape guys have the same issue with managing a game, but they shouldn't be umpiring at the highest level either.
I'm hoping this is a parody of something.
How frequent is this? I admit I have no idea, but I can't think of the last time I saw it.
or is getting screamed at by a player/manager and needs to go toe-to-toe.
This is even more confusing. Do mlb managers actually physically assault umpires?
But thats not all of an MLB umpire's job.
Do you have a third example that's a little better?
I agree with #27, but taking the above comment seriously for a moment -- is this more of a requirement in MLB than in the minors?
If an umpire like Pawol demonstrates the ability to handle the job in the minors, is there any reason to think she can't do it at the MLB level?
Ron Luciano talked about how size seemed important to people making decisions about umpires.
Dunno that it actually does matter, but at least since Hubbard's time they've looked for guys big guys -- everything else being equal.
EDIT: Different times, but in Hubbard's day attempts to intimidate the umpire weren't uncommon. Plenty of stories about the early days of Hubbard's umping career. These days the umpires absolutely know the league won't tolerate so much as laying a finger of them.
Lassus, don't you feel extraordinarily guilty for having enjoyed such a "non-inclusive" activity as Major League Baseball all these years? All this time you've spent watching, commenting, Met fanning, etc. ... and all on such a misogynist enterprise.
JE, you're trying to reason with a bunch of religious devotees. Asking that question here is little different than posing it to a group of Pentacostal congregants at the midpoint of Sunday service.
You didn't in fact enjoy the sport or the presentation of it any less for its want of a female umpire all these years. Nor did any other honest person here.
Secular people not in thrall to wokedom simply admit that to themselves, or more likely, the thought is so silly that it never arises in the first place.
This is an immeasurably stupid argument against improvement.
First, you need to show that it would be "improvement" -- and not by appeal to catechism or undefined buzzword. Then we can go from there.
And volume :-) -- I remember that as well... when his football career crapped out, a friend told him he had the perfect size and voice for umpiring (and a joking "face fit for a mask", IIC).
This all really could have/should have been avoided if not for the inexplicable Pam Postema stuff - after working spring games in 1988, she was on her 5th season at AAA (11 in the minors overall) and was generally well-rated. It seemed only a matter of time until she arrived (Rumor had it that Giamatti had every intention of making it happen; he had pushed the spring training contract). Then - Bart died and Postema was inexplicably let go a couple years later. I know she filed a discrimination suit (settled out of court, IIRC).
But - well... Angel Hernandez got his MLB contract in 1991. Hard to imagine Postema wouldn't have been a better choice.
Again, someone understood the assignment. 1919 misses your arguments.
My guess would be "no," and that you prefer your faith to reason. Certainly a long-standing tradition of that in the course of human affairs.
It's an improvement because it inspires girls and women to do things they wouldn't have otherwise done. It assists the attitudes of people who would now make decisions to help women doing things they've never done because before that they thought they couldn't do those things, because they haven't ever done them. It makes the world a better place because it hurts nothing and no one and helps my nieces and their friends - male and female.
Have a counter?
Pretending for a second that some here are arguing in good faith (I know, I know), the default assumption in the modern world should be that a given job can be equally handled by men or women, and if you want to argue that it is OK that a given job is exclusively (or even overwhelmingly) one gender or the other then you need to present more evidence than "It has always been that way."*
I have heard zero credible arguments for why umps need to be male. And no, they need to be big to handle on field disputes is laughable. If the ump can handle it in the minor leagues then they can in the show, especially since the biggest danger from players umps are under is what, having dirt kicked onto their shoes? And even that is vanishingly rare.
* And yes, such jobs exist. Like the players of the sports teams being umpired, for one obvious example. Leave your dumb "So you think every job in the universe must be gender neutral?" takes behind. We all acknowledge not every job has to be gender neutral.
I agree, but I would add it is also going to result in a qualitative improvement. Increasing the pool of potential umpires means more people who have high end skills and eventually increases the average quality of umpiring.
The barrage of non-substantive and obtuse replies* from the usual suspects are the tell.
* Who here has argued that umpiring must be a man's job?
Umpiring is a frivolous job. I don't want girls and women -- or anyone, really -- to be inspired to do it in lieu of something less frivolous that they might be better at.
I assume you've heard the term "bread and circuses"?
I can't decipher this. I think you might be saying that if women can be umpires -- it has never really been the case that they can't, especially in the last four decades or so -- that it therefore will encourage people to mentor or assist women to be umpires. That seems like at best a neutral thing, especially given what I said above about the frivolousness of the job.
Nor is there any real evidence, or reason to believe, that the existence of even intentionally single-sex things -- all-boys schools, all-girls schools, all-women sororities, adult women's clubs, all-women sports leagues, all-men sports leagues, impacts "attitudes" in a negative way.
See my response to 1. If a woman who could help cure cancer is instead steered and mentored and attitude-d into become a baseball umpire, it hurts the world.
Please provide a list or way to parse which jobs are "frivolous" and which are not. Thanks!
Put another way, umpiring in the show pays plenty well (If I recall correctly), so the market doesn't think it is all that "frivolous", and is no more or less frivolous than the vast majority of jobs.
Put a third way, snob much?
You could have just stopped here.
Don't feed the trolls.
I agree, but I would add it is also going to result in a qualitative improvement. Increasing the pool of potential umpires means more people who have high end skills and eventually increases the average quality of umpiring.
I agree. If MLB umpiring becomes more meritocratic by not excluding qualified people simply because of their gender or their body size, that would be a good thing for the sport. Certainly the umpiring we've had for the past few decades could be improved upon.
Here's the ideal body type for a home plate umpire.
But that's neutral as to society, if not bad.
The sport is bread and circuses. Society has no interest in deltas in its officiating caliber.
It's fine to enjoy the sport as a child would -- I certainly do sometimes (*) -- but when you start getting into more serious issues that implicate issues beyond the play on the field, it's time to put away childish things.
(*) More with sports like hockey at this point, but whatever.
If that's not what you're arguing, then what ARE you arguing? Lassus laid out the social improvements nicely in 45 and Mellow followed up with a key point in 47 about improving umpiring in general because we now potentially have a larger pool of applicants for these jobs, some of whom are likely better than current umpires.
If your argument is that women have never been excluded from MLB umpiring and thus it doesn't need to be celebrated or even mentioned when one is on the cusp of gaining that position, I would point out thousands of years of male-dominated institutions as the rebuttal.
That there's no possibility for "improvement" to be found in marginal changes in the "gender" mix of baseball umpires. Or for that matter, the mix in any other sport.
The way you toss this around for "reasoning I disagree with" everywhere is a concern.
Who here has argued that umpiring must be a man's job?
My argument is that you whining about "overdue" in the headline is petty, basic, and crystal clear in its implication regarding this article or any similar sentiment.
I bow my head and admit fault here. That being said, while I stopped responding to RMc I actually think SBB believes his quackery, and Jason's belief that he's on the side of the angels.
If it quacks like a duck!!
If some feel such an observation is worthy of derision, then ┐(ツ)┌ .
And it did so only to garner clicks and to give the congregation their dopamine fix.
It's basically like Catholic/Protestant communion at this point, only mass is never-ending.
Fair. What have the current or retired female MLB umpires said about it? If nothing recent, perhaps something published in the archives or posthumously?
Postema was given seven.
In 1988 she was one of seven umps up for two openings. She didn't get either. In '89, she was fired after the year, her seventh in AAA. She of course claimed discrimination (*), partially staved off the defendants' summary judgment motions in the Southern District and, as happens every day in American litigation, rather than pay lawyers a ton of money to try the case, they instead paid her far less to be done with it all. The settlement also included a provision that she not apply for any umpiring jobs in organized baseball.
(*) As well as, interestingly, antitrust violations.
We are talking about MLB and not being your co-worker. Stop projecting. Though I admit I like the honesty.
Ashtray money, bro.
Good for them. They don't need to indulge themselves in nonsense just so a bunch of aging white guys can "feel better" about their entertainment.
(*) That employs all of 76 total people.
I mean there is no way any job where the starting pay is well over three times the median salary for women* could ever attract any women to apply for it. That would be crazy.
* The gender-based wage gap in the United States has narrowed in recent years, but disparities remain: national median earnings for civilians who worked full-time, year-round in the past 12 months was $53,544 for men compared to $43,394 for women, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2019 American Community Survey (ACS).
** No word what the salary for non-frivolous jobs are, working with people not fat, dumpy, loser men.
Oh, I see the problem -- you don't understand English.
Obviously, no one has argued any such thing, particularly seeing as Pam Postema -- a woman -- has been part of the discussion the entire thread and made it to AAA and MLB spring training over 30 years ago. And when a simple Google search will reveal several other women who have been in the umpiring pipeline and still are.
You don't understand this, either. One doesn't wake up one morning and just "apply" to be an umpire in the major leagues (*), anymore than one wakes up one morning and decides to just "apply" to be a player in the major leagues.
(*) Hint: The path to the low-status job working with a bunch of fat, dumpy, loser men in the major leagues is comprised of working for several years in even-lower-status jobs with even fatter, dumpier, bigger loser men.
So your argument that no woman want the job is absurd. It is a very well paying job - again over triple the median salary for women and nearly triple that of men.
So we have a desirable and well paying job that women have been striving for (as you state) and yet none have made it in 100 years.
Clearly discrimination, just as you laid it out. Thanks.
Confirmed -- you still don't understand English. Not only have I not "acknowledged" that it's a "desirable job that women want," I've said the exact opposite several times. It's a shitty, frivolous, low-status job that women don't want -- and for understandable reasons. (*)
(*) I've also said more than once that society should be steering women away from it, and toward better, more useful, more productive jobs.
The fact that no women has been hired in over a hundred years is categorical proof of discrimination.
Only to the less intelligent.
I think you're reading way too much into the headline and it says more about you than the headline itself. MLB has never had a female umpire in its 100+ year history. They're overdue for one. That's the headline, everything else is you grinding your own axe.
(*) Hint: The path to the low-status job working with a bunch of fat, dumpy, loser men in the major leagues is comprised of working for several years in even-lower-status jobs with even fatter, dumpier, bigger loser men.
I would bet that MLB umpires are older and fatter than their minor league counterparts.
I realize snobs consider most working people to be beneath them, but I don't think any honest job is low-status.
OK, then I guess we can add "in denial of reality" to "can't read English."
There are millions of honest low-status jobs. Not really to me; I get along with everyone. But I don't decide society's rules or status gradations.
My doormen are all great guys. They aren't held in as high esteem as my doctor, though. And obviously the status of potential careers has a big impact on the appeal of said careers. This is crystal clear. There's really no need to re-litigate this obvious point and if you find yourself in such a position, you should probably re-evaluate your premises and priors and everything that follows.
A proposition you hold dear has been proven wanting when exposed to even superficial examination. And now you're taking that out on me. If it makes you feel better, ok -- but it's outside the scope of the actual topic at hand.
Note the article doesn't say "overdue." At most, Janes refers to Powal as a "trailblazer." Additionally, Powal makes clear that she -- and other women interested in umpiring -- are most certainly *not* victims of discrimination.
Again, if you wish to discuss a potential occurrence that's meaningfully overdue with far-reaching consequences, consider looking at the minor-league unionization thread.
And what's with the "says more about you" hostility?
claims here that it is a "fact" that "MLB is overdue for a female umpire" - well, that's an emotion claiming to be a fact.
back in the old days, the only journalists who got to write their own headlines - at least in the NYC market but likely elsewhere as well - were the columnists.
the reason was that the column was anchored on the front of that particular section of the newspaper (remember those?).
with any other story, it could have been the planned centerpiece with a wide headline and a big subhed or two. then late-breaking news bounces it "below the fold." then another one means it barely even makes the front of the section, so maybe very little headline space.
so it was somewhat pointless for "regular Joes" reporters to pitch a headline.
don't know what The Athletic's policy is, but might be similar - meaning, those at the top of the food chain get to write their own ticket, but no one else does.
(there was a somewhat infamous stretch where Mike Lupica was 'syndicated' in the NYC region. part of the deal was that not one word of his copy could be touched. so if for example he wrote that the Pirates stunned the Yankees in the 1962 World Series and not 1960, the lesser papers had to run the inaccurate "fact.")
How is "overdue" regarding zero female umpires over the course of a century some kind of crazy emotional statement?
that doesn't mean it would be bad if there WAS a female umpire before or now or whenever.
there are two different issues in play there.
It's overwrought and unproven (*). It's divisive. It posits a false and misguided gender essentialism. It falsely insinuates that MLB's product is and has been somehow defective, if not unethical or immoral, for want of a female umpire.(**) Without invitation, it politicizes people's entertainment thereby invading and violating their private space. It passively-aggressively slimes MLB for discrimination it's not guilty of. It tendentiously seeks to profit by giving a bunch of unthinking, irrational people their dopamine fix.
Etc, etc.
You're smart enough to know why people are pushing back on it, Lassus. Just as I'm smart enough to know the reasons why people have a different opinion in this area than (generally) mine. (***) If someone wants to write an opinion column saying MLB is overdue to have a female umpire and the sport would be improved with one, have at it. Just don't pretend it's news.
(*) False, really, but I don't want to get caught up in the actual word.
(**) Which is why I early on pointed out that you yourself had never remotely acted as if that were the case. Compare and contrast that with, say, how you and I and virtually the entire board if we were alive then would have been able to see by like 1930 how defective white-only MLB was.
(***) Just so it's clear, I'm not remotely against a female umpire; in fact, I wouldn't care if the entire umpire corps was female. I'm simply indifferent to it, so long as there's not actual discrimination involved and then I'm of course not indifferent. In no sense would the addition of a single female ump be inherently an "improvement." That's pure gender essentialism.
And yet it's treated like one. Exactly. It's a dolt treating as self-evident something that is anything but.
Because it would just be a sportswriter thing at that point, not the injection of political commentary.
Though if I said that about the Texas Rangers, people would call for a mental-health intervention.
Like I wrote above, if you see a simple statement like "MLB is overdue for a female umpire" as objectionable political commentary, that is much more about the political baggage you're bringing to the table than about the statement itself. (Especially when that headline is attached to what everyone seems to agree is a very fair article.)
Guilty as charged.
The problem, though, is that other people don't -- pretty clearly because of their political biases.
(*) The relative "simplicity" of a statement says nothing about its political content -- e.g., "all men are created equal."
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