Girls and Baseball

Thu, Feb 18, 2010 by Reference

The New Jersey judge whose ruling opened Little League baseball to girls, died Monday at the age of 75. Sylvia Pressler ruled in 1973 that 12 year old Maria Pepe should not have been barred from playing on a boys team. The organization’s national office had threatened to revoke the local league’s charter.

Although Little League initially condemned Pressler’s decision, it lost on appeal, and eventually amended its charter to allow girls. Pressler’s legal opinion cited Little League as “American as the hot dog and apple pie. There is no reason why that part of Americana should be withheld from girls.”