MLB calling on his first women’s referee, promoting Jen Pawol for the Miami-Atlanta match on Saturday

Jen Pawol is expected to become the first woman to the referee in the Major Baseball League when she is working on matches this weekend between the Braves of Miami Marlins and Atlanta.

Pawol will work on Saturday’s double head bases in Trist Park and the plate on Sunday, MLB told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Pawol, a 48 -year -old from New Jersey, worked on spring training matches in 2024 and this year.

“Baseball has done an excellent job to be completely inclusive,” said Dave Roberts, manager of Los Angeles Dodgers. “I’m going to watch. It’s good for the match.”

The MLB’s decision occurs 28 years after the genre barrier for the game officials was broken in the NBA, 10 years after the end of the NFL and three years after the Male Football World Cup used a women’s referee. The NHL has still not had official women on the ice.

Pawol in 2024 became the first woman to arbitrate the spring training games of the Great League since Ria Cortesio in 2007. Cortesio spent nine years in the minor leagues, including the last five of the South-A South League, then was released after the 2007 season.

Pawol was softball and a football player from all states in New Jersey for three seasons in each sport in West Milford High School. She went to Hofstra for a softball scholarship and became a triple choice of all the conferences and was part of the United States Women’s Baseball National Baseball team in 2001.

Pawol obtained a master’s degree and lived in the Binghamton district of New York and took teachers’ certification courses at the Elmira College while playing on the side.

“I was not really satisfied,” she said last year. “Leaving a huge competitive career, playing locally, I did not receive my solution. And I remember watching the referee and being like, I think that’s all. I have to go.”

After refereing NCAA softball from 2010 to 2016, she attended an MLB referees’ test camp in 2015, was invited to the Training Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, and received a job in the Gulf Coast League in 2016.

• Violet Palmer became the first woman referee of the NBA when she worked in Vancouver in Dallas on October 31, 1997.
• Shannon Eastin became the first woman responsible for the NFL on the field on September 12, 2012, for the San Diego match in St. Louis to replace when regular officials were locked up.
• Sarah Thomas was the first ordinary NFL woman on the field when she was a judge online for the Kansas City match in Houston on September 13, 2015.
• Stephanie FRAPPART DE FRANCE became the first woman to arbitrate a male World Cup match when she worked in Germany’s 4-2 victory over Costa Rica on December 1, 2022.
• Rebecca Welch became the first to arbitrate in the Premier League in England when she officiated the 2-0 victory from Burnley to Fulham on December 23, 2023.

MLB has 76 full -time staff referees and uses fillings on the teams for the openings created by injuries and holidays.