The story of how Maria Pepe, a 12-year-old girl from Hoboken, New Jersey, forced Little League to accept female players is pretty well known. I’ve written about it myself.
But in reality, the Little League story is not one of a single girl up against a behemoth. It’s more a case of nationwide spontaneous combustion.
In 1974, about twenty girls across the country brought lawsuits against the all-boy Little League baseball organization. The lawsuits stretched from the East Coast to the West Coast. Maria Pepe’s lawsuit was simply the first one to go to court — and the lawsuit that won the day.
By the time that court case was settled, Maria was too old to qualify for Little League. In 1972, she had made a team, but she only played in three games before she was forced off the field.
Fighting small minds
Meanwhile, a girl in Peabody, Massachusetts, had a similar story. When 10-year-old Janine Cinseruli showed up for tryouts in her town, she was barred from the field.
“When I went to sign up, a guy said, ‘You can’t play,’ and I said, ‘Why?’ and he said, ‘Because you’re a girl,’” she recalled. “I was not that smart or worldly, but I knew right then it was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. … I said, ‘But I can play, I’m really good.’”*
Janine’s mother, Marion, went to bat for her. She hired a lawyer and filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Their argument was the same as Maria Pepe’s — that Little League uses public fields and therefore can’t exclude girls from participating.
When the case went to court, the Suffolk County Superior Court agreed.
“The boys used to play with the boys, and the girls with the girls, but times have changed,” said Judge Samuel Adams.**
The ruling came down in favor not only of Janine, but also of 10-year-old Susan Wegryn of Wellesley, Massachusetts, who had filed her own suit. “Baseball is my sport, and I want to play it,” she said in court.***
The ruling also covered Janet Bowe of Allston, Mass., and Debbie MacColl of Wellesley. Janet had been barred from tryouts, while Debbie had been accepted one year when she signed up using her initials only, but barred the next year, when she wrote out her full name.
Storming the field
Trailblazers like these girls don’t forge a path easily. Janine’s family was bombarded with hate mail, which they tried to ignore, but it wasn’t easy.
“Most of the letters I couldn’t even repeat because they were obscene, that’s just what they were,” Janine’s mother, Marion, said. “But I feel they come from small-minded people and I just burn them, throw them away.”****
Little League didn’t really see the light. They caved because the cost of the mounting lawsuits would have bankrupted the organization. They continued to insist that Little League was the “prerogative” of males only.
Meanwhile, after the ruling, in Peabody alone, 25 girls showed up for tryouts.
Janine celebrated her win in court by dedicating her first game to her attorney, Ruth Budd. She pitched in that game and struck out 16 batters.
“Roger Clemens did that for the Red Sox [in 1997] and I thought, ‘Cool, I did that, too, when I was 11,’” she said later as an adult.
Janine went on to play not only regular season Little League, but in all-star teams for the next two summers. She was even elected team captain. I guess she showed them! As did all the other ball-playing girls who started a firestorm on the baseball field.
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* Melissa Isaacson, “The girls who toppled Little League,” ESPN.com (June 24, 2014).
** Joseph M. Harvey, “Peabody girl wins Little League trial,” The Boston Globe (April 25, 1974), p. 3.
*** Paul Langner, “2 Mass. girls win Little League case,” The Boston Globe (May 19, 1974), p. 29.
**** This quote and the following one come from Isaacson, “The girls.”