Those planning to attend this weekend’s Marlins-Braves series will watch history, and it’s got nothing to do with impressive Miami hitters Agustín Ramírez and Kyle Stowers.
Major League Baseball confirmed that veteran minor-league umpire Jen Pawol will work three of the four games in Atlanta this weekend. Pawol will not only become the first female umpire to work an MLB regular-season game, but she’s also scheduled to call strikes on Sunday afternoon.
Pawol, who has worked at Triple-A since 2023, is one of 17 umpires eligible for a temporary promotion. An opportunity for Pawol to work a big-league game arose because there’s a doubleheader on Saturday, and each home plate umpire skips the game that they’re not working.
Here’s everything that you need to know about Jen Pawol, who history will remember as Major League Baseball’s first female umpire.
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB season.
Who is Jen Pawol, MLB’s first woman umpire?
Originally from New Jersey, Pawol (pronounced“Powell”) played softball at Hofstra and participated in the 2001 Women’s Baseball World Series. She served as an umpire in the Big Ten Conference from 2013-15 before moving to the Gulf Coast League (now the Florida Complex League) in 2016 and becoming only the seventh female umpire in Minor League Baseball history.
Pawol’s big break came in 2023, when she moved up to Triple-A and even umpired the league’s National Championship Game. No female umpire had worked a Triple-A game in 34 years before Pawol got her chance.
Then came 2024, when Pawol served as the third-base umpire during a Washington Nationals-Houston Astros spring training game in West Palm Beach, Fla. Several weeks later, Pawol opened the regular season as a minor-league crew chief, an impressive feat for someone in only their second Triple-A campaign.
Jen Pawol is the first woman to umpire an MLB Spring Training game in 17 years 👏
— espnW (@espnW) February 25, 2024
She started the night as the third base umpire for Astros-Nationals.
(🎥 @mlb) pic.twitter.com/DbN4USrUGP
“I can control my hustle, my calls, my professionalism,” Pawol said in 2016, via MILB.com. “But gender and color and things like that, no one can control those.”
As of August 2025, there are two female umpires in affiliated professional baseball: Pawol and Isabella Robb, who debuted in 2022. They join Bernice Gera (1972), Christine Wren (1975-77), Pam Postema (1977-89), Theresa Cox Fairlady (1989-91), Ria Cortesio (1999-2007), and Shanna Kook (2003-04) as the only women to serve as minor-league umpires.
“The women who came before me, they moved some big boulders to make it easier for women to come through,” Pawol told Major League Baseball’s official website in 2024. “And I’m just so grateful for what I get to do for a living. I love it.”
It is too early to know whether or not Pawol will join a full-time MLB umpire crew next season.