The MLB Welcomes Its First Female Umpire Over 50 Years After Bernice Gera Was Told She Didn’t Belong in Baseball

Jen Pawol will make history as the first female umpire in Major League Baseball when the Miami Marlins take on the Atlanta Braves on Saturday, Aug. 9. The historic moment comes more than 50 years after Bernice Gera had a similar ambition.

Gera loved baseball, using it as an anchor in her otherwise tumultuous childhood. She played with her brothers and rarely ever missed a Brooklyn Dodgers game (before the team moved to Los Angeles in the late ’50s).

Working as a secretary, baseball was constantly on her mind. She desperately wanted to work for one of the major league teams, asking each organization for a job. Every team declined. 

“At first I just tried to get a job with any club, doing anything,” she said in a 1972 interview. “I would have sold peanuts if they wanted me to. But the answer was negative all the way around.”

“I waited three months for one team to answer. And would you believe that I stayed up nights praying for it to come through?” she added. “When they said no, I decided to become an umpire.”

In 1966, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She applied to, and was accepted at, the Al Somers School for Umpires in 1967. She was all set to attend until Al Somers realized her name was “Bernice” and not “Bernie.” He told her there “never had been a woman in his umpire school, and there never would be.”

So, at the age of 36, Gera enrolled in the Florida Baseball School after umpiring Little League games in the early ’60s. The school was male-dominated, and she spent the six-week program living in a motel because there were no facilities for female students.

At night, her male colleagues would throw cans at her door. After completing her training, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL) rejected her application, stating that she did not meet the physical requirements for the position of umpire.

Determined, Gera wrote several letters to the head of the umpire development bureau, but received no response. She appealed to baseball commissioner William Eckert, but Eckert deferred the case back to the head of the umpire development bureau.

Gera decided to take this issue to court. In 1969, she filed multiple formal complaints with the New York State Human Rights Commission. In April 1971, the Appellate Division issued an opinion in the case, confirming the previous order of the Human Rights Appeal Board that organized baseball had indeed discriminated against Gera because of her sex. 

After several years in court, she won the right to umpire in 1972. That April, she was awarded a one-year contract for the minor leagues.

“All through this case, my heart was broken. I’ve always wondered if this was worth it,” Gera said, reflecting on the years-long legal fight.

“They didn’t want me on the field,” she once told writer and author Nora Ephron in an interview for Esquire Magazine. “It all hinged on whether I could take it. I took it. But after, I’d go home and cry like a baby.”

On June 24, 1972, Gera made her professional debut. The game, originally scheduled for the day prior, was delayed due to the remnants of Hurricane Agnes.

The Class A Geneva Rangers and Auburn Phillies had a doubleheader. It was reported that over 2,000 fans were in the stands, mainly to see her.

While the fans cheered her on in the first few innings, in the fourth inning, she called Auburn’s Terry Ford safe, but quickly realized he wasn’t. Recognizing her mistake, she reversed the call on the field and called him out. 

Auburn manager Nolan Campbell stormed the field and demanded to know why she overturned the call. Gera admitted she made a mistake. In Campbell’s recollection of events, he told her, “That’s the second mistake you made. The first one was putting on that uniform.”

In Gera’s recollection of events, Campbell told her, “You made two mistakes. The first mistake was you should have stayed in the kitchen peeling potatoes.”

Gera tossed Campbell out of the game. After the end of the contest, Gera told Geneva general manager Joe McDonough that she was resigning. She left the stadium in tears and, with her husband, drove off in her umpire uniform.

Gera never umpired another game of professional baseball. 

“In a way, they succeeded in getting rid of me,” she said in her 1972 interview. “But in a way, I’ve succeeded too. I’ve broken the barrier. It can be done. I don’t care what people say now. People haven’t gone through what I’ve gone through. You have to experience it to understand it.”

However, she didn’t leave baseball forever. In 1974, the New York Mets hired her to work in the team’s community relations department, commuting to Shea Stadium every day.

Gera worked there for several years before her position was ultimately eliminated. She and her husband, Steve Gera, then moved to Pembroke Pines, Fla., where she died from kidney cancer at the age of 61.

Her final wishes were to have her ashes spread at a ballpark that meant a lot to her, which meant Shea Stadium. Walking out from the Mets bullpen, Steve spread her ashes on the diamond.

The shoes Bernice wore during her historic game in 1972 are preserved at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., alongside a photo of her.