Bernice Gera

Bernice Shiner Gera (June 15, 1931 – September 23, 1992) was the first female umpire in professional baseball.[1] She retired after one game citing the resentment of other umpires.

Bernice Shiner Gera
BornJune 15, 1931
Ernest, Pennsylvania, US
DiedSeptember 23, 1992 (aged 61)
Pembroke Pines, Florida, US
OccupationUmpire
Spouse(s)Steve Gera
Bernice Gera historical marker

Life

Born in Ernest, Pennsylvania and one of five children, Gera loved baseball as a child and grew up playing as an outfielder and umpiring games.[2][3] She never considered a career in baseball until she was already in her mid-thirties, married, living in Jackson Heights, New York, and working as a secretary.[2][3] According to a Time article, the idea to become an umpire just suddenly hit her one night and saw her work umpiring games in slums as "a form of social welfare", as having a woman on the field would lead to "less trouble" and encourage other women to attend the games.[3] Gera sold her husband, a free-lance photographer, on the idea and enrolled in the Florida Baseball School in 1967.[4][3]

As umpiring had been a strictly male profession up to that point, the school had no facilities for Gera, and she spent much of the six-week program living in a nearby motel. By several reports, she excelled in her training, yet Gera was rejected by the National Association of Baseball Leagues (NABL), which claimed that she did not meet the physical requirements of the job.[5] Ed Doherty, a baseball executive, claimed that umpires needed to be 21–35 years old, a minimum of 5 foot 10 inches tall, and weigh 170 pounds while Gera was only 5 foot 2, 38 years old, and 126 pounds.[3] Gera even had prior experience umpiring for the National Baseball Congress in Bridgeton, New Jersey as well as in "recreational programs in the slums", but this was not enough to get her a job.[3] Unable to gain employment as a female umpire, on March 19, 1969, Gera filed a sex discrimination case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act with the New York State Human Rights Commission.[3] In her complaint, she accused both the New York Professional Baseball League and its president, Vincent McNamara, of not employing her as an umpire due to her sex.[3] In his rejection of Gera's application, McNamara cited single-gender dressing rooms and foul language on the field as reasons why females should not umpire games.[3]

Undeterred, Gera fought the NABL in court for five years.[6] Representative Mario Biaggi (D., N.Y.), represented Gera legally in court and, using Gera's story as inspiration, even introduced an equal rights Constitutional amendment to the House during his time in Congres.[3] On January 13, 1972, Gera finally won a discrimination suit against the NABL,[7] winning approval in The Court of Appeals in a 5-to-2 decision.[8] Though she was not a member of women's liberation group, she was a "stanch adherent of work equality" and viewed this as a huge victory.[8] She then received a contract to work in the New York–Penn League on April 13, opening the door for her to become the first female umpire in professional baseball.[9] On June 23, 1972, she gained national attention when she umpired the first game of a Class A minor league doubleheader between the Geneva Senators and Auburn Twins. The game was a near sellout with 2,000 people attending the game at Shuron Park in Geneva, N.Y.[10]

In the fourth inning, Gera ruled Auburn base-runner Terry Ford safe at second on a double play, then reversed her call. Auburn manager Nolan Campbell disputed the decision and said that Gera's first mistake was putting on an umpire's uniform and her second was blowing the call. Campbell was ejected from the game, but Gera still decided to resign between games, which was later said to be planned, saying she became disenchanted with umpiring when the other umpires refused to cooperate with her on the field.[11][12] She was scheduled to be the home plate umpire for the second game.[13]

Gera cites the "cool resentment" of both the other umpires and the baseball establishment as a motivation for her decision to resign, not her dispute with Auburn manager Nolan Campbell.[6] This, combined with both verbal, written and physical "threats" "disgusted" her and contributed to her disillusionment with baseball culture.[6] Eight men, for example, allegedly shattered the light outside Gera's motel room and cursed at her the night before she umpired her first game, perceiving her as an "attack on baseball's male fraternity.[14] Though she resigned not long after becoming an umpire, Gera saw this as a larger, symbolic victory for women participating in sports historically perceived as "for men only."[15]

"Bernice would always say, 'I could beat them in the courts, but I can't beat them on the field,'" Steve Gera, her husband, quoted his wife as saying. Although she stopped umpiring, Bernice Gera stayed in the game. She went to work for the New York Mets in the team's community relations and promotions from 1974 to 1979 before retiring to Florida.

Bernice died of kidney cancer in 1992 in Memorial Hospital West in Pembroke Pines, Florida at 61 years old.[16]

gollark: They generally just take one outdated kernel version, patch in the code they need, ship it, and then never update it, instead of "upstreaming" the drivers so they'll be incorporated in the official Linux source code.
gollark: You know how I said that companies were obligated to release the source code to the kernel on their device? Some just blatantly ignore that (*cough*MediaTek*cough*). And when it *is* there, it's actually quite bad.
gollark: It's actually worse than *just* that though, because of course.
gollark: There are some other !!FUN!! issues here which I think organizations like the FSF have spent some time considering. Consider something like Android. Android is in fact open source, and the GPL obligates companies to release the source code to modified kernels and such; in theory, you can download the Android repos and device-specific ones, compile it, and flash it to your device. How cool and good™!Unfortunately, it doesn't actually work this way. Not only is Android a horrible multiple-tens-of-gigabytes monolith which takes ages to compile (due to the monolithic system image design), but for "security" some devices won't actually let you unlock the bootloader and flash your image.
gollark: The big one *now* is SaaS, where you don't get the software *at all* but remote access to some on their servers.

References
  1. "Bernice Gera". Biography.com. Archived from the original on 2010-06-18.
  2. "Bernice gera". New York Times. Sep 25, 1992. ProQuest 108860097.
  3. H. L. (Mar 20, 1969). "Mrs. gera, who seeks to ump pro baseball, goes up to bat again". Wall Street Journal. ProQuest 133424058.
  4. "Bernice Gera".
  5. "Umpire Ambitions Of Lady a Big Out". The Huntsville Times. Associated Press. May 1, 1968. p. 10.
  6. D. A. (Jun 26, 1972). "Woman umpire returns to plates at home". New York Times. ProQuest 119455830.
  7. "Court Backs Lady Umpire". The Milwaukee Journal. January 13, 1972.
  8. WILLIAM E FARRELL (Jan 14, 1972). "Court rules woman may be a baseball umpire". New York Times. ProQuest 119422502.
  9. "Bernice Gera Gets Contract as Umpire". Montreal Gazette. April 14, 1972.
  10. "Woman umpire quits in tears after debut". New York Times. Jun 25, 1972. ProQuest 119441352.
  11. "Every Woman Should Think For Herself". The Day (New London). June 23, 1972.
  12. "Woman umpire quits in tears after debut". New York Times. Jun 25, 1972. ProQuest 119441352.
  13. "Woman Ump Bernice Gera Resigns After Just 1 Game". The Morning Record. June 26, 1972.
  14. "The Lady Was an Ump".
  15. "For-men-only barrier in athletics is teetering". New York Times. Jul 16, 1972. ProQuest 119541727.
  16. "Obituaries". The New York Times. September 25, 1992.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.