Ria Cortesio is an American former baseball umpire, working games at the Double A level.
In 2007, she became the first woman since Pam Postema in 1989 to work a Major league exhibition game.
[4] On March 29, 2007, she became the first woman umpire to work in a Major League Baseball exhibition game since Postema in 1989, when she served alternately as the first and third base umpire in a spring training game between the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks.
According to fellow umpire Kate Sargeant, Cortesio's male colleagues colluded against her to block her advancement to Triple A,[6] where she would have received major league supervision.
[6] Cortesio was the fifth female umpire in the history of the game, after Bernice Gera, Christine Wren, Postema, and Theresa Cox Fairlady.