SEATTLE — We had the same mission, Jen Pawol and I. We just didn’t know it at the time.
Five years ago, I tracked down Seattle native Christine Wren and wrote a cover story for the Seattle Times’ Pacific NW Magazine about her experiences as the first woman to work as a full-time umpire in professional baseball, back in the 1970s.
In 25 years as a sportswriter, I have never had a more reluctant interview subject than Wren, and I have never had to work harder to convince someone to share their story.
Eventually, and thankfully, Wren relented, and I got to know her and her baseball story over a series of phone interviews during the 2020 COVID summer. She had an earned edge about her, but she was earnest and thoughtful in our conversations, and I remember feeling a strong sense of obligation to handle her story with care, to tell it properly.
I think she was owed that.
Soon after the magazine was published, I got an email from Pawol, whom I had mentioned in the story as one of the few female umpires currently working in minor league baseball — and maybe the one who might eventually break through as the first woman to reach the major leagues.
Pawol wrote that she had been trying, unsuccessfully, for awhile to track down Wren, who, it turned out, had retired to Spokane and, effectively, disappeared. Wren had no public address, no phone number listing, no social media presence — no desire to be found, it seemed.
I had finally managed to connect with Wren through a relative of hers, and after the story published I was happy to pass along Wren’s email address to Pawol.
As I learned this week, Wren and Pawol had connected shortly after that and became friendly. They carried on conversations and exchanged emails as Pawol made her ascent through the minor leagues, and a couple years ago, Wren came out to Tacoma to watch Pawol work a Triple-A series with the Tacoma Rainers.
This week, Wren sounded as thrilled as anyone when news spread that Pawol would make history as MLB’s first female umpire. Pawol was going to The Show, completing the journey Wren began 50 years ago in Seattle.
“It’s about time,” Wren wrote me in an email. “What I thought would take 10 years or so to happen, happened. 50 years is a long time to wait, but baseball will be getting a great umpire in Jen Pawol.”
Wren was among the many to reach out Pawol with a congratulatory message this week, and in an interview with the Associated Press, Pawol listed Wren among the people she needed to thank for this opportunity.
“I was overcome with emotion,” Pawol said. “It was super emotional to finally be living that phone call that I’d been hoping for and working towards for quite a while, and I just felt super full — I feel like a fully charged battery ready to go.”
Pawol is scheduled to work the bases for the Braves-Marlins doubleheader Saturday in Atlanta. On Sunday, she will call balls and strikes behind the plate.
Pawol’s breakthrough comes 28 years after the gender barrier for game officials was broken in the NBA, 10 years after the NFL hired its first full-time female official and three years after the men’s soccer World Cup employed a female referee. The NHL still has not had a woman work as an on-ice official, the AP noted.
“This has been over 1,200 minor league games, countless hours of video review trying to get better, and underneath it all has just been this passion and this love for the game of baseball,” Pawol said. “This started in my playing days as a catcher and transformed over into an umpire, and I think it’s gotten even stronger as an umpire. Umpiring is for me, it’s in my DNA. It’s been a long, hard journey.”
It was a challenging time for Wren in the 1970s, and the baseball establishment didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for her.
One baseball executive at the time openly questioned whether she could handle the physical rigors of umpiring. Wren, it should be noted, was hit by a foul ball that fractured her right collarbone late in her first season working in the Northwest League circuit in 1975; she didn’t tell anyone about the injury and finished out the final six weeks of the season as scheduled.
For her first two seasons, in ’75 and ’76, Wren usually wore a long pony tail behind her black umpire’s hat. For the 1977 season, she cut her hair short, in part so she would blend in more on the field.
That would be her final season. Baseball culture at the time, as she came to understand, simply didn’t know what to do with a woman umpire.
“I gave it the best shot I could,” she said in 2020. “I don’t think I’m bitter. I love the game.”
She still does, and she’ll be watching from afar as Pawol makes history this weekend.
“Wish I could be there,” Wren wrote.
