ATLANTA -- It’s rare to see an umpire receive a standing ovation when their name is announced during pregame introductions. But then again, Jen Pawol is the embodiment of rare air.
History was made Saturday afternoon at Truist Park, as Pawol became the first woman to umpire a Major League game in Game 1 of the Marlins-Braves day-night doubleheader. She was at first base in the afternoon affair and will be at third base in the nightcap, before serving as the home-plate umpire in Sunday's series finale (FREE on MLB.TV, 1:35 p.m. ET).
“I’d say when we walked the field [is when it hit me],” Pawol said. “We walked the field early as a crew, and Gucc [crew chief Chris Guccione] and I were looking at each other, and I said, ‘This is it! This is what we worked for!’ So I think it hit me then, and then we had a really special moment at the end where I went through the final pitcher check for the top of the ninth, we kinda hugged and it really hit me.
“It was pretty amazing when we took the field, and it seemed like quite a few people started clapping and saying my name, so that was pretty intense and very emotional.”
Pawol, 48, has been umpiring professionally for the past 10 seasons, having begun in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League in 2016.
She described feeling overcome with emotion after receiving word that she’d work an MLB game earlier in the week.
“It was super emotional to finally be living that phone call that I’d been hoping for and working towards for quite a while,” Pawol told The Associated Press earlier this week, “and I just felt super full. I feel like a fully charged battery ready to go.”
For Pawol, who was full of smiles postgame, those vibrant emotions remained within her all week.
“Just incredible,” she exclaimed. "The dream actually came true today, and I’m still living in it. And I’m just so grateful to my family, to Major League Baseball for just creating such an amazing work environment. To all the umpires that I work with … it’s just amazing camaraderie. We’re having fun out there -- we’re working hard but we’re having fun. I was so thankful.”
Saturday wasn’t the first time the Major League trailblazer saw her name etched in baseball’s record books.
Pawol became the first woman to umpire a Triple-A championship in 2023, and she was the first in 34 years to work a Triple-A game earlier that season. She was also the first woman since 2007 to umpire a Spring Training game in 2024. That same year, she reached MLB’s Umpire Call-Up list.
For Pawol, this was a moment 30-plus years -- and over 1,200 games -- in the making. She recalls getting her start in the early 1990s, when a friend asked her to umpire softball games with her. For Pawol, a softball player herself who ended up catching collegiately for Hofstra (she was a three-time All-Conference selection there), the decision was a no-brainer.
She had a seven-year tenure in NCAA softball from 2010-16, during which she was approached by Major League umpire Ted Barrett, who invited her to an umpire camp.
After a couple of camps and a trip to the MLB Umpire Camp in Vero Beach, Fla., Pawol was calling balls and strikes as a professional. But Barrett warned her of the possible travails of the journey, hypothesizing that it could take 10 or more years for her to reach her goal of working in the Majors.
“I warned her: ‘Look, this is what you’re up against. It’s going to be 10 years in the Minor Leagues before you sniff a big league field,’” Barrett said.
Pawol will be savoring every moment this weekend at Truist Park, where she has a bevy of supporters -- including over 30 personal guests at Saturday’s game.
Those supporters include current Major League players, managers, her fellow umpires and several women, both in the game and outside of it. The number of advocates has been too many to count.
“Thank you to all the Major League umpires and the Minor League umpires off the top [of my head],” she said. “Plus dozens and dozens … [of people] from our own craft have been reaching out. I've just had an outpouring of text messages from softball umpires that I've been friends with. And a notable person from another sport, [NFL referee] Sarah Thomas has become such a good friend of mine. And so she's been blowing up my phone. … It's just been absolutely unbelievable.”
Guccione called the moment one of the proudest of his career.
“This is one of the proudest moments I've been part of in all my career,” he said. “I mean, I've been blessed with working playoffs, I've worked two World Series, All-Star Games, and this one is right up there. … It gives me chills, just like, even thinking about it and the magnitude, I was just sitting here going -- it kind of just hit me just now.
“The magnitude of this whole thing and how hard she's worked. I have a daughter, and she was so excited to meet Jen. And this is just a great role model for girls and women out there. … She's an incredible person, and likes to have fun, works hard.”
Guccione and Pawol posed for pictures with her umpire’s cap following their press conference just before heading back to their locker room to prepare for Game 2 of the doubleheader. The cap will leave Atlanta and head to Cooperstown to be immortalized in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
As for Pawol, she’s hoping this immortalized moment can serve as a beacon of hope for women and girls that will follow her.
“Come out and give it a try,” Pawol said on her advice for aspiring young ladies wishing to umpire.
“First and foremost, give it a try, and get into it and have some stick-to-itiveness, some grit to see it through. It's a long road, it's not an overnight road, or it's not one promotion. There's countless, countless things that you do. This and then that. And then this and then that. And I think a lot of people give up along that road. So just see it through, make friends, have fun and just give it a try.”
“I'm aware of the gravity, I'm aware of the magnitude,” Pawol said earlier. “I believe that I'm going to be a very good steward and representative for young girls and women, and boys and men, that this is possible.”