Female Umpire To Work Future Games

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Female umpire to work Futures Game

Baseball's only woman umpire to work Futures Game, Home Run Derby

(by BEN WALKER, AP Baseball Writer)

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Ria Cortesio is eager to get her first look at PNC Park -- the double-decked stands, the Roberto Clemente bridge in left field, the Allegheny River beyond the wall in right.

The fans packing the seats for the All-Star festivities will see something new, too: a woman umpire working on a Major League field.

"I don't do this job to get on TV," she said this week. "But I hope it will raise the awareness a little."

In her fourth year at Double-A, Cortesio is the lone woman umpire in professional ball. Picked from the Southern League, she will be at third base Sunday when top Minor League prospects play in the Futures Game.

On Monday night, she'll work one of the foul lines when David Ortiz, Ryan Howard and other sluggers compete in the Home Run Derby.

"And don't think I'll give Lance Berkman any breaks just because we went to school together at Rice," she said.

Cortesio started this season back in school, as a substitute teacher when Minor League umpires went on strike in a pay dispute. Out nearly two months, their gains were modest and included a $3 bump in per diem that took her to $25 a day.

Major league umpires get $357 daily, although they must cover their own hotel costs. During her time in Pittsburgh, Cortesio will be paid at the big league rate.

"I'll make as much in one day in per diem as we get in two weeks at Double-A," she said. "That money is already spent, though. I needed it to pay the bills back home."

At 29 and in her eighth year overall, Cortesio represents the majors' best -- and only, for now -- chance at its first woman umpire. There have been five other woman umps in pro ball, and Pam Postema got the closest to making it when she did spring training games in the late 1980s.

At least their presence was finally recognized this year in the rulebook.

An amendment to Rule 2.00 in the Definition of Terms reads: "Any reference in these Official Baseball Rules to 'he,' 'him,' or 'his' shall be deemed to be a reference to 'she,' 'her,' or 'hers,' as the case may be, when the person is female."

Veteran big league umpire Larry Young, a member of the Playing Rules Committee, voted in favor of the wording.

"It's politically correct, and I think there's some legal issues," he said Friday night in Milwaukee. "I think it was instigated by lawyers, to be honest."

Young said the change was not specifically because of Cortesio "but female umpires in general."

Cortesio began in the Pioneer League and later worked in the Midwest League. In the Florida State League, George Steinbrenner criticized her for squeezing the strike zone when Roger Clemens made a rehab start.

Told that Cortesio had once umpired Clemens' boys in Little League in Texas, the New York Yankees owner huffed: "Is that right? Well that's good, I guess she'll go back there."

Fans at the ballpark, however, often do not realize that she is a she. Cortesio is a slender 5-foot-10, but cut her ponytail a few years ago and calls strikes with a low grunt.

An instructor at the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring, her future depends on how she's ranked against other Double-A umps, as rated by minor league supervisors.

If she reaches Triple-A, big league evaluators will grade her. Yet even then, there's little turnover on the 68-man umpiring staff in the Majors.

As it stands, Cortesio makes about $2,600 per month. Her three-person crew drives an average of 24,000 miles over a full season.

Cortesio worked Friday night in Jackson, Tenn., and will do a game in Huntsville, Ala., on Wednesday night. When she gets there, it will be a challenge -- she'll have two new umpiring partners, because one person on her original crew got promoted and the other retired.

This weekend, though, it's strictly big league. Real nice hotel, new umpiring pants, shirts, hats and All-Star patches.

"I can't wait to pick mine up," she said. "I've been treated like royalty. It's first class, all the way."