45 years later, Fulle’s legacy honored

All around the United States, Little Leaguers are taking the field. Little boys and girls are ready to play ball.

So it’s a good time to honor Jenny Fulle.

That’s what the Mill Valley Little League did last week on its opening day. The organization honored Fulle, whom it had battled 45 years earlier when she was a little girl. Fulle won the battle and became the first girl to legally play Little League baseball in the United States.

In 1972, Fulle tucked her ponytail into her cap, pretended to be a boy, and went to tryouts. She was told she wasn’t allowed to play because she was a girl. That was the year Title IX was passed and Fulle and her family kept fighting, arguing that Little League couldn’t discriminate as long as it was using public facilities. There were no real other options at the time for a girl who wanted to play baseball.

The local chapter of the National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union got involved, and eventually Fulle won her case. She played in 1974. From then on, girls could play in Little League. My own daughter played several years in the Mill Valley Little League.

I remember Fulle when I was growing up in Mill Valley. I heard the boys scoff at her ability, as though they were a bunch of budding Willie Mayses. I remember that she was famous in her small town. Or maybe infamous. She stood out.

Last weekend, she said the experience toughened her. Fulle has gone on to a successful filmmaking career. She was on hand in Mill Valley, along with her teenage son, for the unveiling of a plaque with her name on it, near the field where she was once banned.

Did she ever think she’d see such a thing? “Nope,” she said. She asked for the 24 girls playing in Little League this year — out of 700 registered players — to gather around her for a picture. The little girls stood by the woman who is in part the reason they get to don uniforms and caps, punch fists into gloves and stand at home plate.

A couple of them called out, “Thank you, Jenny.”

And thank you to every girl who fought to play. Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion