For the first time in almost 20 years, a woman will be behind the ump's mask at this Thursday's spring training matchup between the Diamondbacks and Cubs. Ria Cortesio is a nine year umpiring veteran who has spent the past five years at the Double-A level, and also serves as an instructor at the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring. She has been working minor league exhibition games in Arizona this month, and in a few days will work the Arizona-Chicago game.

Both Derick Lee and Scott Eyre like the idea of a woman ump', with Lee commenting "It's awesome. I think it's about time. Female eyes are as good as male eyes. Why can't they be umpires?" Cortesio is in line to receive a promotion and hopes to move to Triple-A later this season.

The last time a woman ump' worked a game was in 1989 when Pam Postema worked spring training games. Before her, we had Bernice Gera who worked a total of one minor league game following years of legal wranglings with the "open-minded" folks at the North American Professional Baseball League.

Speaking of open minded people, I wonder what Keith Hernandez thinks about women on the field? Considering his opinion about women in the dugout, it would be logical to conclude that he won't be making any supporting statements for Cortesio.

This post was added on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under The Dugout . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.