Good evening, everyone:

Sports have made only the most oblique appearances in my nightly notes. Not because they aren’t entertaining or a way of escaping the heaviness of our daily news. But instead, because they are so ubiquitous in our media that I can’t really add anything of value.

But given today’s all-staff outing at the Tigers game, I thought it behooved me to reconsider.

Fortunately, the timing was good.  I was intrigued when a few weeks back Jen Pawol made history by being the first female Major League Baseball umpire to call balls and strikes at home plate in a regular season game. She was drafted to preside in the Atlanta Braves-Miami Marlins showdown in Atlanta. Here she is about to make her first call – a strike on a fastball by Braves starting pitcher Joey Wentz to Marlins leadoff hitter Xavier Edwards:

Even though the pitch was shown on the computer tracker to be a couple of inches inside (i.e., not a strike), both teams seemed to live with it. One observer who runs a baseball statistics website said: "Jen Pawol is no different than any other umpire—missing the call to open the game. There was always going to be a ton of pressure on the first pitch, I cannot remember the last time a game’s focus was on the umpire. She has been good since, and hasn’t missed another one,"

Umpire Pawol could not have been more pleased: ."The dream actually came true today. I'm still living in it. I'm so grateful to my family and Major League Baseball for creating such an incredible work environment. ... I'm just so thankful.”

I was curious about how other men’s sports enterprises were welcoming women officials. A very mixed bag.

In 2022 (i.e., just three years ago), .Stéphanie Frappart of France became the first female referee in a men’s World Cup match (Germany vs. Costa Rica):

Just as interesting, perhaps, is that that match was officiated by an all-women contingent of three.

Basketball did quite a bit better. In 1997, Violet Palmer because the first woman to referee a National Basketball Association game. But it took her nine more years to become the first woman to serve as a referee in an NBA playoff (Indiana Pacers vs. New Jersey Nets):

American Football was next, and there the story is complicated. Shannon Eastin became the first woman to officiate a National Football League regular season game in 2012 (Detroit Lions vs. St. Louis Rams): But the twist is that she took the field as a replacement official during a lockout of full-time referees; she did referee throughout the season, but not thereafter. I’m not sure Roger Godell should have picked that fight, by the way – Eastin has won six national judo championships. And she subsequently founded a company called SE Sports Officiating, which trains officials in football and basketball.

It would take another nine years before a woman refereed a Super Bowl: Sarah Thomas. Thomas also was the first woman to referee in the league full time, starting in 2015:

So, baseball, football (both American and the real football), basketball. That would leave hockey. And hockey has failed, quite dramatically, to cover itself with honor. No woman has ever officiated a regular season National Hockey League game. Be nice if they got on the stick:

Rip

‍