Jen Pawol makes history as first woman to umpire regular-season MLB game

The GIST: As you read, former college softball player and longtime umpire Jen Pawol made history over the weekend as the first woman to ump a regular-season MLB game, the latest milestone amid a surge of women taking the diamond by storm. Talk about stepping up to the plate.

💪 Over a century later, a woman gets the call: Pawol is the first woman to do the honors in MLB’s long history, breaking the regular-season barrier 17 years after becoming the first woman to umpire a Spring Training game.

• It was a long road to the milestone: Pawol toiled through over 1,200 minor league games across a decade-long career before finally getting the call to the bigs. That’s a whole lot of outs.

📈 Pawol’s breakthrough just the latest for women in baseball: As pro softball continues to rise in the U.S., many women chase their big-league dreams in baseball — and they’re reaching the game’s highest levels, from Kim Ng becoming the first woman general manager in the four major men’s leagues in 2020 to newest Savannah Banana Kelsie Whitmore taking the mound in the Atlantic League in 2022.

• Plus, there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon, especially considering Pawol’s one of eight women actively umpiring in the minors. One “dream come true” will allow countless others to dream big.