This is a column about two women. They may not belong in the same column, but they are here as the result of the coincidence of recent news development. One of the women, Jen Pawol, whom I talked with, is ecstatically happy, and I am happy for her. I have not talked to the other woman so I don’t know how she feels, but she very likely has mixed feelings.
Katherine Ramirez is the wife of Jose Reyes, the 2011 National League batting champion, who was suspended for the first two months of this season for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy. Ramirez can’t be happy because she was the target of the alleged domestic violence, but she is happy that Reyes was not criminally convicted and, following his suspension, is free to play baseball.
Reyes avoided criminal prosecution because Ramirez refused to cooperate with investigators. The pattern is familiar to people involved with domestic violence. I learned about it when my wife years ago was a volunteer with Alternatives to Domestic Violence in New Jersey.
Battered women don’t like being abused and readily detail their abuse to authorities, but they often stop short of testifying against their abusers, who are free to abuse them again. My wife recalls an episode in which a man, free from a domestic violence charge, fatally battered his wife with a baseball bat.
I am not suggesting a similarity between physical abuse of women and baseball’s treatment of aspiring female umpires, but no woman has ever umpired in the major leagues. In fact, according to Minor League Baseball, Pawol is only the seventh woman to umpire in the minors.
Scheduled to begin her professional career Friday in Dunedin, Fla., in the Class A Gulf Coast League, Pawol (pronounced Powel) is the latest who will try to break the gender barrier.
“I’m passionate about umpiring,” Pawol said in a telephone conversation Wednesday evening, “I absolutely love the work, the job. I can’t imagine not doing this the rest of my life. I attended an umpiring camp in Cincinnati last summer to see if I had what they were looking for. If it didn’t work out, it didn’t, but it has worked out on the good side. I have worked as hard as I could and I love it.
Umpiring, frankly, is a lousy profession. Working conditions, on the road for the entire season, are poor and the pay poorer. Pawol will earn $1,900 a month. Union activity has forced major league salaries up, but minor league salaries remain unconscionable. Gulf Coast League salaries come to about $7.50 an hour. Yet the positions don’t go unfilled. Pawol’s attitude is typical of the aspirants.
A talented baseball and softball player who has played on championship teams, the 39-year-old Pawol was born in West Milford, N.J., grew up on Long Island and graduated from Hofstra University. She is an artist and a creative arts teacher and also trains young softball and baseball players, both boys and girls. But umpiring remains her passion.
“I think everybody who is umpiring, male or female, they’re one pitch away from a career-ending injury,” she said. “There’s a danger to the job. Everybody is aware of that. But you go out and do the best job you can and let it play out. I’m just very thankful for everything that has happened in my life. I’m going to keep working hard and try to get better. I’m going to enjoy every minute of it. I love it that much.”
Pam Postema, who umpired in the minor leagues from 1977 to 1989, probably came the closest of the six female minor league umpires to reach the majors, but her career ended in the highest minor league level.
A person familiar with developments surrounding Postema said some umpires who worked spring training exhibition games with her thought “she was pretty good,” but senior umpires didn’t think she “commanded a game in a physical sense.”
“They thought she was a distraction sexually,” he said.
Some owners also apparently opposed the idea of having a woman as an umpire. “To some owners,” the person said, “it was like saying women should go in submarines.”
In 1991 Postema filed a sex discrimination lawsuit, but the two sides settled it without a trial.
Reyes does not face a trial on a domestic violence charge, and the fact that he does not face criminal charges figures prominently in the debate over whether he should be signed by any team. His team, the Colorado Rockies, recently released him, owing the once prominent shortstop about $44.7 million.
Reyes became a free agent, and a rumor circulated last week that the New York Mets, for whom Reyes played for seven seasons, might sign him. A writer for The Ringer website was vehement in her view that the Mets should not sign him. Nor should anyone else, for that matter.
“The Idea of a José Reyes–Mets Reunion Sucks,” the headline read.
I understand the strong feelings about the issue, but most people who commit crimes should get another chance. We can make exceptions for people like the Orlando killer if he had survived his own massacre
If the writer of the Reyes piece, Claire McNear, wants to find fault, perhaps she could question why Katherine Ramirez didn’t cooperate with the Reyes investigation.
I know why abused wives or girlfriends won’t go after their abusers. But that’s the only way to stop abuse. Baseball’s policy is only a first step. If no team signs Reyes and he is out of baseball, MLB won’t be able to do anything the next time, if there is a next time.