Austin Jones worked first base at Camden Yards on Wednesday. His twin brother, Tyler, worked second. It was the first time the brothers from South Carolina had worked a major league game together. It is the first time identical twins had umpired a major league game.
The drew the opener of a Blue Jays-Orioles doubleheader. Baltimore won 4-2, and the loss knocked Toronto out of the playoff race.
The twins joined Mark Wegner's crew and were expected to umpire the nightcap as well.
The Jones started umpiring in the minors in 2014, when they worked together in the Gulf Coast League, a rookie league in Florida. They hadn't shared a professional field since then. Both spent this season at Triple-A and had been called up the the majors separately.
Austin
made his big league debut on July 22, 2024, and then he was behind the plate when then Rangers ace Max Scherzer, who started the first game Wednesday for Toronto, struck out his 3,400th career hitter.
Identical twins Austin and Tyler Jones umpired their first MLB game together today in Baltimore.
— MLB (@MLB) September 23, 2026
They broke in together in the Minors in 2014 and haven't worked on the same field in over ten years! pic.twitter.com/ylZ3bdGbK5
They are the fourth set of brother to umpire in the majors. They join the Welkes, the Hirschbecks and the Jimenezes. Tim and Bill Welke spent four seasons on the same crew.
The Joneses grew up in Summerville, outside of Charleston. Shortly before they turned 15, a friend told them Summerville Little League needed umpires.
“One of our buddies said, ‘Hey, we’ve got like six umpires for the league this season. If you guys are interested, why don’t you start?’ At the time, we were obsessed with baseball. We couldn’t get enough of it. So, we signed up and covered all four divisions of play,” Austin told Little League.org.
They continued playing baseball through Fort Dorchester High School. Ronnie Saylor, their coach there, called them "cerebral players."
"Two great kids," Saylor told World Baseball network. "You won't find two better young men character-wise."
Tyler got his call less than a year after Austin, while he was in Columbus, Ohio. He drove to St. Louis and worked both games of a Cardinals-Mets doubleheader on May 4, 2025.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Identical twin umpires make MLB history by suiting up together
