You've Got to Have Balls to Make It in This League: My Life As an Umpire

by Pam Postema, Gene Wojciechowski

In You’ve Got to Have Balls to Make It in This League, Pam Postema reveals with frank language and uncompromising candor what it was like being an umpire in professional baseball. For thirteen seasons, from 1977 until her unconditional release in 1989, Postema umpired more than two thousand baseball games, making national news as she worked in various minor leagues as high as level AAA―one step below the majors. She also called many major league spring training games as well as the Hall of Fame game in 1988 between the Yankees and the Braves. Postema’s story is one of grit and determination to succeed in a profession dominated by men, but it is also an intimate look at umpiring. Postema discusses the mindset behind making a proper call, the weeks of intensive training, ejecting problem players and managers, and the chaos mixed with the monotony of being on the road most of the year. Throughout, Postema relates her encounters with major league stars when they were just up-and-comers in the minors.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1992

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll never understand why it’s easier for a female to become an astronaut or cop or fire fighter or soldier or Supreme Court justice than it is to become a major league umpire."

Pam Postema tells the tale of her twelve year minor league umpiring career. She does not present herself as a model citizen, or as someone with a cause other than her desire to make it to the show in blue. She does not seem like a particularly nice or insightful person. What she does offer is a hard-scrabble view of what it is to be an umpire, living on sub-coolie wages, dealing with usual and unusual (sexist) abuse from players, managers and almost everyone associated with the game. She remains bitter about what she sees as the bias and blatant unfairness of the system that denied her what she believes to be a well-deserved shot at the bigs. The language is harsh. The characters are sometimes amusing, often unpleasant. She has unkind words for many. This is not a book for kids, but adults or adolescents might be able to read it as a picture of minor league life and the the reality of sexism in baseball.


Postema officiating at an MLB game in Spring Training in 1988 - image by Ron Modra – from the National Baseball HOF

It does not appear that there has been significant improvement since Postema told her tale in this book. It is long past time for this glass ceiling to be shattered, preferably with a nice piece of ash.

PS - Saturday, August 9, 2025 - Truist Park in Atlanta, Marlins vs Braves - The first crack in that unlovely cover has appeared, as Jen Powal is the first woman scheduled to umpire a regular season Major League Baseball game. It is a temporary call-up. We will see if the opportunity extends to a full season crew assignment next year.

“The women who came before me, they moved some big boulders to make it easier for women to come through,” Pawol told Major League Baseball’s official website in 2024. “And I’m just so grateful for what I get to do for a living. I love it.”

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Items of interest
-----ESPN-W - 2011 - Women Umpires are Striking Out in MLB is disheartening
-----NY Times - July 29, 2017 – For Female Baseball Reporter, Writing About, and Making, History - on Claire Smith, before her welcome into the writers’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame – by Karen Crouse
-----Baseball Hall of Fame - Woman in Blue by Jim Gates
-----JUSTIA US Law - Postema v. NATIONAL LEAGUE OF PRO. BASEBALL CLUBS, 799 F. Supp. 1475 (S.D.N.Y. 1992) - Postema’s complaint against MLB - this is worth a look
-----Global Sports Matter - If you aren't a white male, YER OUT of luck as an umpire by Michael Weinreb
-----Baseball Reference - Postema’s page
-----MLB News - April 7, 2023 - Hillsboro's Gajownik makes history as first High-A woman manager by Michael Avallone
-----The Athletic- April 12, 2023 - A Brockton Rox pitcher is set to make history this summer after a first behind the plate by Melissa Lockard
-----Independent - US edition - August 6, 2025 - From art teacher to trailblazer: Jen Pawol’s long road to becoming MLB’s first female umpire That tinkling noise you hear is the glass ceiling coming down

QUOTES
I didn't know it at the time, but Christine Wren was only the second woman ever to umpire a a minor League game. The first was Bernice Gera, a Jackson Heights, New York, housewife who sued for the right to become a professional umpire. Gera went to umpire school in 1967, but was told by minor league officials that she didn't have the necessary physical requirements. According to officials, Gera was too short (she was five two) to qualify for a position. She took her case to court, and in 1972, the New York State Human rights Division Court ruled in her favor, forcing the minor leagues to finally offer her a contract. (p 20)

Baseball is about respect - earning it or losing it. Baseball is about survival. You're only as good as your last pitch, your last hit, your last victory, or in my case, your last call. All that other stuff about romance and charm is fine if you're sitting in the mezzanine level at Dodger Stadium, munching on Cracker Jack and sipping on a beer. But if you're an umpire, baseball is your worst enemy. All you want is a quick, two-hour game with no bangers, no foul tips off your knee, no rain delays, no extra innings, no bitchy catchers, no whiny pitchers, and no dead-above-the-neck managers, with nothing better to do than complain about every other call.

Of course that almost never happens, which is why umpires have learned to adapt. In a war, you have to. (p 196)

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite part of this book is when Postema calls my father an a**hole. Not to his face, but in this book (and it's his one mention in it).

The way she reacted to my dad reveals some insight into why she didn't make the big leagues, as she was an excellent umpire. The difficult part about being an umpire is that when there's so much competition for so few jobs, little intangible things indeed affect who will be offered a job. And it is definitely a testosterone-filled world.

I remember following her career and rooting for her throughout the '80s. I also remember my dad hoping she'd succeed. But, as Postema reveals with the examples in the book, she often "missed" what was affectionate joking -- and, can you blame her, as she was getting a lot of hostility. The challenge, though, in baseball is that there's so much affectionate joking going on that you have to be able to tell it apart from the hostility.

I did enjoy this book, as Postema captured the rhythm of the baseball vocabulary, which includes about five words. One of them is "brutal," and the rest are not for use in polite company. She also mentioned a lot of people I knew as a teen, so that was interesting.

It's not, however, a particularly well-crafted book. It reads as though she talked into a tape recorder and her co-author transcribed it and cleaned it up a bit.

I think she did get mishandled and "screwed over" a bit by the baseball establishment, and I can't say that I'm surprised. The best parts of the book are when she is telling baseball stories. I found them enjoyable to read about, but I'm not sure I would without my base knowledge of her story and many of the players and principals in it.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

My husband is a baseball fiend and when I watch games with him, I tend to notice the mechanics of the game. The pitcher's wind up, the batter's stance, what the umps and refs do, etc. He sees the stats side of things. We were in a used bookstore this summer and he pointed it out so I read it. Pam Postema got worked over in a man's world, and she sure tells you about it, but she held her own. Unfortunately, and I just don't understand why given what the job duties require, major league umping is still a man's domain.

[Leslie Barrett Garel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this was not one of the best written books I have read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. As a female that was an umpire, I was able to really relate to what she went through. I lived every baseball story she told, knowing exactly what it was like to be in that position. It's sad that she worked so hard to prove herself, and still wasn't given the respect she deserved. Trying to break into a "man's world" definitely isn't an easy task.

[Lorene · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an aggravating read. Misogyny has prevented so many talented women from doing the jobs they are really good at, but sports is a million time worse than other fields. I'm not sure how much different it would be today. I like that the author doesn't only not sugar coat what she went through, but she names names.

[Don Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3). For a true baseball nut, this is about as much fun as it can be. Pam Postema was, and still is, an anomaly. I just read that, almost 40 years later, there is another female umpire in the system right now who might actually make it to the “show,” something that Postema dreamed of but was not able to accomplish. Her story is pretty damn remarkable, and her challenges, to those of us who know a little of how the system works, are unfortunate but understandable. Hats off to her and a nice job by her ghostwriter. Good stuff.

[Tara Schiefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pam is my 2nd cousin.
She’s a great woman & I always looked up to her when I was grownup.
I 🩵 book!

[Kelly Linzey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting look at Women in Men sports.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for a class, and wrote a paper on it (this is the book I chose - not everyone read it).

[Ron Kaplan · Rating 2 out of 5]

baseball,umpires,women