Lew Williams

Lewis Garland Williams III

• Height 5' 11", Weight 178 lb.
• School Cabrillo College
• High School Soquel High School

• Born April 28, 1985 in San Jose, CA USA

Biographical Information

Lew Williams was one of 19 umpires to work his first major league game in 2020. In his case, the first game was on August 7th and he went on to work 8 other games. All 9 of his games involved teams in the two western divisions of MLB, and in 6 of the 9, he was the 5th umpire assigned to a crew working a doubleheader; as a result he was the home plate umpire only once. His debut was a result of umpire Jim Wolf suffering a concussion and needing to be replaced (in fact, he would not return to the field that season).

He attended the Wendelstedt umpiring school, graduating in 2011. He then worked in the Arizona League, the Northwest League, the South Atlantic League, the California League and Southern League before umpiring his first AAA games in the Pacific Coast League. He was a AAA umpire when he worked his first spring training major league games in 2019. In 2013, he started working as a instructor at the newly-created MiLB Umpire School.

He umpired a total of 33 major league games between 2020 and 2023, all as a call-up umpire. Like two other umpires who first worked in the majors in 2020, José Navas and Randy Rosenberg, he failed to secure a full-time position on the major league umpiring staff and had been bypassed by others when the 2024 season came along.

His hometown is Lodi, CA.

Related Sites

• Lew Williams on mlb.com