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."

Post #6: Brief Update

I spent two days in Williamsport, PA, the headquarters of Little League Baseball (LLB), over spring break. I was able to gather a fair amount of information, but it was not the gold mine for which I was hoping. I spoke with the director of the Peter J. McGovern Little League museum, Mrs. Janice Ogurcek, who said she herself is in the process of digging up material on Little League's integration of the sexes. She mentioned that this, naturally, is not exactly a part of Little League's past that it wants to highlight. Thus, much of the relevant documents are buried deep in dusty file cabinets, often in a not too terribly organized fashion, and not likely to come out for display. There were two moderate displays, however, focused on girls and Little League. A good portion of this was concerning the softball end of Little League which is not the focus of my research. I did, however, return home with much more information than when I had left. As an additional bonus, I got Mr. Van Auken, who works at LLB headquarters, and is the author of Play Ball!: The Story of Little League Baseball (which I first came across during the LOC trip), to sign a copy of his book which I purchased at the musuem.

Before I begin writing the paper, I would like to find a copy of the federal charter granted to LLB by Congress in 1964 as well as a few of the legal documents from the many sexual discrimination lawsuits brought against LLB from all across the country. I have been able to get a significant amount of information on the legal battles by means of newspaper articles. The case which ultimately broke the sex barrier occurred in Hoboken, N.J., so the New York Times covered that case quite extensively and followed some of the other cases to a lesser extent.

Post #7: Bibliography

Here is a working bibliography. I should note that the bulk of my sources are newspaper articles from the early 1970s. However, Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations says, "News items from daily papers are rarely listed separately in a bibliography or reference list." I guess this means I only cite them with notes in the body of the paper. I will ask about this though.

P.S. I indented multiple line entries in my Word file, but when I cut and paste them here, everything becomes left justified.


Crooks, Linda. “How Far Have Girls Come?” GWS News. 31 October 1997, 6.

“First and Fearless.” Sports Illustrated, 15 July 2002, 116.

Frommer, Harvey. Growing Up at Bat: 50 Years of Little League Baseball. New York: Pharos Books, 1989.

Goodman, Matthew. “Little League Justice.” The Utne Reader, September 1990, 118.

Klinger, Dara-Lyn. “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Philadelphia Magazine, July 1991, 31.

“Milestones in the History of Women’s Sports & Fitness.” Women’s Sports and Fitness, February 1994, 27.

New York Times. 7 July 1971-27 December 1974.

Newman, Gerald. HappyBirthday, Little League. NewYork: F. Watts, 1989.

Pogrebin, Letty Cottin. “Baseball Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Ms., spring 2002, 30.

Shirts, Morris A., and Kent E. Myers. Call it Right! Umpiring in the Little League. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1977.

Stotz, Carl E. A Promise Kept: The Story of the Founding of Little League Baseball. Jersey Shore: Zebrowski Historical Services Pub. Co., 1992.

Taves, Isabella. Not Bad for a Girl. New York: M. Evans, 1972.

Van Auken, Lance, and Robin Van Auken. Play Ball!: The Story of Little League Baseball. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.

Washington Post. 16 April 1972-15 June 1975.

Post #5: Library of Congress Trip

The trip to the Library of Congress was about as productive as I could have expected considering the time constraints. I had already formed a list of books and their call numbers the night before by browsing through the online catalog. So, when we finally got to the main reading room just before 2 o’clock, I checked the catalog again to see whether the books I intended to request had already been charged to someone. Fortunately, they were not charged out and my request slips were stamped at 2:11 p.m. The books weren’t delivered until nearly an hour and a half later though, leaving me just over an hour to look through them.

The four books that I requested were: Jackie Robinson’s Little League Baseball Book (written by Jackie himself as the title suggests); Happy Birthday, Little League by Gerald Newman; Play Ball!: The Story of Little League Baseball by Lance and Robin Van Auken; and Growing Up at Bat: 50 Years of Little League Baseball by Harvey Frommer. Jackie Robinson’s book did not deal with integration, but rather was an instructional how-to book with regard to developing specific baseball skills (hitting, throwing, base running, etc.) Mr. Newman’s book was geared for juvenile readers and did not touch on integration either. The Van Aukens’ book, however, did have a decent amount of useful information. There were a couple pages dealing with racial tension in the South Carolina little leagues in 1955, as well as a whole chapter on Little League’s integration of the sexes. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, I was unable to take much of a look at Mr. Frommer’s book. I was able to photocopy some of the relevant parts of the Play Ball! book before closing time though.

I will return to the Library of Congress if I am unable to find these, or the other books I have on my LOC catalog list, at local libraries. My next main step will be to visit the Little League Baseball Museum in Williamsport, PA over spring break. I also plan to start looking for some newspaper articles at that time.