Given the increasingly-global nature of baseball, I was surprised to learn that it was only on Monday night in Florida that we saw the first ever Venezuelan to officiate in a major-league game. It’s just a temporary call-up for umpire Manuel Gonzalez, who was replacing veteran ump John Hirschbeck, absent for personal reasons, and he’ll be back down in the minors tomorrow.
MLB Umpires: Still Overwhelmingly White, Male And American
However, when you look at the composition of the umpiring crews operating around baseball, it’s clear that no matter how integrated the rest of the game may have become, that isn’t the case for the men in blue.
This season, almost 28% of players were born outside the US. But of the 63 umpires listed on MLB.com with biographies, only three men - less than 5% - came from beyond the 50 states: CB Bucknor (born in Jamaica), Angel Hernandez (Cuba), and Alfonso Marquez (Mexico). Part of that may, perhaps with some justification, be blamed on the language barrier, but it still seems like a remarkably low percentage.
It’s not just race, but sex too: There have been female umpires, such as Pam Postema and Ria Cortesio, who both worked spring-training games, and there was even an all-female crew for a Mets spring game in 2008, but none have ever made it to the majors. However, as baseball seeks new markets, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the demographics of umpiredom eventually come closer to reflecting that of the players.
See More:
