A twin bill with twin umpires! Austin and Tyler Jones make MLB history

BALTIMORE -- If you were watching any of the Blue Jays-Orioles doubleheader at Camden Yards on Wednesday and thought the umpires stationed at first and second base looked quite similar -- almost like they could be doppelgangers -- well, there was a reason for that.

Austin and Tyler Jones were the first identical twins to serve on the same umpiring crew for an MLB game. During Baltimore’s 4-2 Game 1 win, Austin was at first and Tyler was at second. Then, they flip-flopped for the O’s 4-2 Game 2 victory, with Tyler at first and Austin at second.

This was a moment the Jones twins had waited a long time for -- and it was well worth it.

“This is something we’ve dreamed about forever,” Tyler said.

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Growing up near Charleston, S.C., the Jones twins got into umpiring when they were 15 years old. A dad of one of their friends said he was looking for Little League umpires, and Austin and Tyler both decided to get into it, considering they were baseball players and fans of the sport.

The Joneses went to umpire school together at 18. And by 2014, they were in the pros, even working on a crew together for a game in the Gulf Coast League.

But as the years went by, Austin and Tyler rarely crossed paths. They were assigned to different leagues in the lower level of the Minors, and they’ve never worked on the same crew in Double-A or Triple-A. Since that one-off GCL game, the only time they had again worked together was in the Arizona Fall League in 2024, when they worked the annual Fall Stars Game.

Still, the Jones twins held out hope they could one day ump together in the big leagues. Both currently continue to work primarily in Triple-A, but they are sporadically called up as MLB fill-ins -- Austin since 2024, and Tyler since ‘25.

On Tuesday afternoon, Tyler was taking a nap at his hotel in Baltimore when he received a call from Austin, who was enjoying some scheduled time off at home before preparing to head to Washington to work this weekend’s Mets-Nationals series.

Tyler told Austin he had been asleep when he called.

“Why? You don’t have a game tonight,” Austin replied.

“I didn’t realize we had already been rained out,” said Tyler, who worked Monday night’s Blue Jays-Orioles opener before Tuesday’s postponement.

Then, Austin hit Tyler with the news -- he was driving from Charleston to Baltimore to join him on the umpire crew for Wednesday’s doubleheader, as Austin’s supervisor gave him the job.

“We were told last year, ‘OK, if we can make it happen, we’ll make it happen.’ And it didn’t, the schedules didn’t align,” Tyler said. “Even this year, we weren’t sure if it was going to happen or not. And then, it was kind of a shock, so it’s like a scramble to get everybody that we can here.”

The Jones’ supporters in the Camden Yards stands included their parents, their wives and Austin’s three children. They attended all 18 innings (though they got to take a break at their hotel in between games of the split doubleheader).

It was a day that lived up to everything the twins thought it would be.

“We talk to each other daily, especially about baseball and about everything and what we go through on a day-to-day basis,” Tyler said. “But to be able to live it together and come to the ballpark and see him in the locker room and play cards with him before the game and share that experience was probably the best part. Because that’s where we like to interact with each other, the other crew members before the game, after the game and stuff. So that was really cool.”

During the first game, it was a bit surreal for both Jones twins. As they got more settled in for the nightcap, they could greater appreciate the history that was being made by their presence.

“It was cool to look over, and that’s something my wife told me. She was like, ‘Hey, when you’re out there, obviously you’re looking at your partners every pitch every play, but take a second and look at him not as just the guy working first base, your partner, look at him as your brother,’” Austin said. “So I did that a little bit more so tonight.”