Dan Merzel

Daniel Benjamin Merzel

• Height 5' 10", Weight 170 lb.
• School Johns Hopkins University
• High School Hopkinton High School

• Born July 20, 1987 in Hopkinton, MA USA

Biographical Information

Dan Merzel worked his first major league game as an umpire on August 29, 2020, as one of 19 umpires to make his debut that season. He worked a total of 10 games, all in the two central divisions of MLB.

Growing up as the son of Jeff Merzel, a college umpire, he was a star baseball player himself, all the way to college where he played for Johns Hopkins University, making it to the Division III College World Series in 2008 as a junior. When there were no longer any playing opportunities for him, he turned to umpiring, attending the Jim Evans umpiring school in the winter of 2010 and being hired to work in the Coastal Plain League and in the independent Atlantic League that summer. He joined the ranks of organized baseball in the New York-Penn League in 2011. He later worked in the South Atlantic League, the Carolina League and the Eastern League before making it to the AAA International League in 2016.

As a part-time job between his umpiring work, he worked as a tutor for gifted kids through a program sponsored by his alma mater, which is better known for its academic results than its contribution to sports. He majored in applied mathematics and statistics and minored in management, but turned down a job offer from PricewaterhouseCoopers to pursue his baseball dream.

Further Reading

• Tim Casey: "Johns Hopkins Graduate, and an Umpire", The New York Times, May 17, 2014. [1]
• Marvin Pave: "Umpiring keeps him in the game", The Boston Globe, July 7, 2011. [2]

Related Sites

• Dan Merzel on Retrosheet.org