First Girls in Little League Baseball

By J. Patrick Lewis b. 1942

December 26, 1974
Title IX of the 1972 Education Act is signed, providing for equal opportunity in athletics for girls as well as boys.

The year was 1974

When Little Leaguers learned the score.

President Ford took out his pen,

And signed a law that said from then

On women too would have the chance

To wear the stripes and wear the pants.

Now what you hear, as flags unfurl,

Is "Atta boy!" and "Atta girl!"

J. Patrick Lewis, "First Girls in Little League Baseball" from A Burst of Firsts: Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers, published by The Dial Press. Copyright © 2001 by J. Patrick Lewis. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Source: A Burst of Firsts: Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers (The Dial Press, 2001)

Biography

Former Children's Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis grew up in Gary, Indiana and earned a BA at Saint Joseph’s College, an MA at Indiana University, and a PhD in economics at the Ohio State University. Lewis taught in the department of Business, Accounting and Economics at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, until 1998 when he became a full-time writer.

Lewis is the author of more than fifty books of poetry for children, which . . .

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