The eighth female umpire to ever work in an affiliated league debuts in June
Bernice Gera (1972)
The first female umpire in an affiliated league was Bernice Gera, who was working as a secretary in Jackson Heights, New York, when she suddenly decided she wanted to be an umpire. She had some experience, having umped at the amateur level when not working as a secretary. She enrolled in the Florida Baseball School in 1967 as the only female in a six-week program. She reportedly did very well in her training, but was turned down for a job as an umpire in the National Association of Baseball Leagues (NABL) because she didn’t meet the age, height, and weight requirements.
Gera filed a sex discrimination lawsuit that took five years to get through the courts. She finally won the suit on a 5-to-2 decision in January of 1972. In April, she was hired to work as an umpire in the New York-Penn League and became the first female umpire in an affiliated professional baseball game when she worked as a base ump in the opening game of a doubleheader on June 23.
It did not go well. She called an Auburn baserunner safe at second on a double play, then quickly reversed her call. The Auburn manager came out to argue and reportedly told her that her “first mistake was putting on an umpire’s uniform and her second was blowing the call.” She ejected him.
Before the second game of the doubleheader started, Gera resigned. She would later say that her resignation had nothing to do with what the Auburn manager said, but was because of her “disillusionment with baseball culture.” She had received verbal, written and physical threats. The poor treatment wasn’t just from players and coaches, but from her fellow umpires as well. According to her husband, she said, “I could beat them in the courts, but I can’t beat them on the field.” After her umpiring career ended, she was hired by the New York Mets as part of the team’s community relations and promotions department, where she worked until 1979.