Post #8: Outline

Here’s a skeleton outline. I must confess I’m not much of an outline-style writer. Usually, I come up with no more main points/themes than I can count on one hand, and let my writing branch out from there. Much more detail than that starts to feel like a writer’s straitjacket. However, since a paragraph-by-paragraph outline was requested, I have attempted to list the topics I want to address in roughly the order in which I intend to address them. I plan to refer back to this outline and make changes/add details (e.g. sources and quotes I have decided to cite) as a tool to help work through the paper.

Put Me in Coach, I'm Ready to Play!: The Story of Girls and Little League Baseball

Paragraph 1: Introduction and Statement of Thesis (open with Linda Crooks’ GWS News quote)

Thesis: As a widespread, deep-rooted, American institution, Little League ultimately changed its membership policies to reflect the prevailing social attitude of American society toward girls' participation in youth baseball.

Paragraphs 2-3: The Founding of Little League Baseball (LLB) (including excerpts of 1941 rules and by-laws)

Show that LLB was an organization founded with only boys in mind.

Paragraphs 4-6: Kathryn "Tubby" Massar, the First Girl to Play LLB (including excerpts from the Corning Leader, her hometown paper)

Tell the story of this girl who made her Little League team by trying out as a boy and the rule change that appeared the very next year, precluding girls from participating in Little League.

Paragraph 7: Maria Pepe and Three Big Little League Games

Introduce the girl who paved the way for all girls to play Little League.

Paragraph 8: The Baseball Significance of Hoboken, NJ

Briefly tell the story of this, the site of the birth of modern baseball.

Paragraphs 9-11: Maria Pepe and Three Big Little League Games (cont.)

Paragraph 12: The Legal Battles Begin: NOW, LLB, and the NJ Division of Civil Rights

Briefly introduce the course of events that led to legal action by NOW on behalf of Maria.

Paragraph 13: Pro Ballplayers Weigh In (including results of a New York Times poll on whether girls should be allowed to play LLB with boys)

Tell the story of the Pepes' visit to Yankee Stadium for a Yankees game and relate some of the opinions of Yankees and Mets ballplayers concerning girls and Little League.

Paragraphs 14-17: The Legal Battles Begin: NOW, LLB, and the NJ Division of Civil Rights (cont.)

Follow the course of the court proceedings. Include testimony of physiology Ph.D. and executive vice president of LLB, Dr. Creighton J. Hale. Discuss LLB's legal arguments: risk of physical injury to girls, LLB's claim to be a private organization, and LLB's federal charter.

Paragraphs 18-20: Female Firsts in LLB

Discuss some milestones that have marked girls' participation in Little League since Maria's landmark court case.

Paragraphs 21-22: Title IX and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution

Begin to "invert the funnel" in preparation for the conclusion. Place the events that occurred in Little League into the larger social and historical context of women's rights and the women's rights movements of the time.

Paragraph 23: Closing (including the story of Dr. Creighton Hale's granddaughter who now plays Little League and his quote, "What goes around, comes around."