Gay MLB pioneer supports possible first woman umpire
- Jen Pawol is working MLB Spring Training games, could be called up this season
- Former ump Dale Scott believes the time is right for Pawol
- Scott was the first openly gay MLB umpire
WEST PALM BEACH, FL – FEBRUARY 24: Umpire Jen Pawol looks on during the 2024 Spring Training Game between Houston Astros and Washington Nationals at Cacti Park of the Palm Beaches on Saturday, February 24, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
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(NewsNation) — Is it finally time for a woman to call balls and strikes Major League Baseball? Has the game changed enough that veteran minor league ump Jen Pawol might break into The Show?
“What’s changed? A lot!” says retired MLB umpire Dale Scott. “For several years now there have been women officiating in the NBA and NFL. MLB is behind the curve in that department. That’s slowly changing, and with the coverage Jen is receiving, I anticipate there will be more women considering a professional umpire career.”
Keeping his secret
Scott knows something about trailblazing in baseball. A decade ago, he came out as gay. He tells NewsNation it was a very slow process, complicated by timing and medical history.
“My first game in the minor leagues was in June 1981, just a couple weeks after the first reported rare cancers being diagnosed to healthy, young men in San Francisco and New York. Of course, that was the start of the AIDS epidemic.”
“Not only did I hide my true self so I would have a chance to advance and hopefully get a shot at the big leagues, I now had to hide my true self just so someone would work with me. I needed to keep my secret.”
Scott says a lot has changed since then — enough for him to quietly come out in 2014.
“In a perfect world I would have publicly come out earlier. But the umpire staff and MLB management knew I was gay years before the public did.”
Many years, many changes
According to MLB.com, Pawol put a decade into umpiring amateur baseball and softball games before hitting the pro Gulf Coast League in the summer of 2016. At that time, she was just the seventh woman to ever umpire in the minor leagues. But this season, Pawol will be among nine minor league female umpires.
The former art teacher says her journey has been “spic and span. We’re dealing with a completely different universe (after) so many decades of Title IX rolling out.”
Scott hasn’t seen Pawol call a game, but appreciates her reaching a big milestone. “Being on the call-up list is an accomplishment and something to be proud of. But, just like any umpire on that list, you’re still a long way from an MLB contract.”
Pawol will be a full-time umpire in AAA, the second-highest level in pro baseball. Umpires on the call-up list may work MLB games during regular umps’ vacations or other absences.
Pawol’s sports resume is solid: A three-year all-state athlete in softball and soccer at West Milford High School in New Jersey, a softball scholarship at Hofstra and a World Championship with the U.S. Women’s softball team in 2001.
Scott’s long career began with amateur games while in high school in his native Eugene, Oregon, in the mid-70s. He hit the minor leagues in 1981 and made the American League just five years later. Injuries, including four concussions in five years, forced him to retire in 2017. Scott told his personal story in his 2022 book “The Umpire is Out.”