The World Series will go on without my Yankees, but here’s one more baseball story for you. Meet Toni Stone, the first woman to play professional ball in the Negro Leagues.

            Marcenia Lyle Stone was born in West Virginia in 1921, but at age 10, she moved with her family to St. Paul, Minnesota. Her interest in sports was noted early, earning her the nickname “Tomboy.” Eventually, she chose “Toni” as her professional name.

            Her mother was unhappy with Toni’s athletic interests. She bought her a pair of ice skates, hoping to dissuade her from less feminine pursuits. Toni wanted nothing to do with those skates! Neither did she want to play softball — it was baseball, and baseball only, for her.

            “Baseball was like a drug,” Toni said. “Whenever summer would come around and the bats would start popping, I’d go crazy.”*

            Toni’s parents considered that “drug” sinful, and she dutifully confessed to the family’s Catholic priest. Surprisingly, he didn’t extract penance from her — instead, he signed her up for the church’s baseball team, the first girl to play.

The coach couldn’t say no

            Looking for more coaching, Toni showed up to watch the action at a baseball school run by Gabby Street, manager of the minor league St. Paul Saints. At first, the coach wasn’t thrilled.

            “Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again,” Street said. “I just couldn’t get rid of her until I gave her a chance.”**

            Not only was Toni the first woman in Street’s program, she was the first Black player he had accepted. Until she came along, he had scrupulously maintained an all-white program.

            By the time she was 16, Toni was playing weekend games with the barnstorming Twin City Colored Giants, where again she was a first. Eventually, she dropped out of high school and moved to San Francisco to live with her sister, hoping to make a living playing baseball.

            There, a local pub owner got Toni settled with an American Legion baseball team. But there was a catch — Legion ball limited players to ages 18 and under. No problem! Toni just erased 10 years from her actual age and presented herself as a 17-year-old teenager. She played with the team for two years, until 1945.

            Legion ball led Toni to the San Francisco Sea Lions, a barnstorming team that was part baseball and part vaudeville. But when she learned she was being paid less than the male players, she decamped to the New Orleans Creoles.

Replacing “The Hammer”

            Now, let’s add on another layer of discrimination. In 1950, Toni married Aurelious Pescia Alberga, who ordered her to abandon baseball. She gave in for one year, but the pull of the game was too strong. “He would have stopped me if he could have, but he couldn’t,” Stone said.***

            Toni caught the eye of the Indianapolis Clowns, who were hurting from the departure of Hank Aaron, who had been signed by the Atlanta Braves. The Clowns were looking for someone who could not only bring in crowds but was also good at the game. So, in 1953, Toni became the first woman to play in the Negro Leagues, as a second baseman.

            No matter that it was a publicity stunt, Toni won the nation over. “She belts home runs as easily as most girls catch stitches in their knitting, and the sports boys are goggle-eyed,”  reported syndicated columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.†

Leaving the bench

            Not surprisingly, the Clowns restricted the team to one female player, and Toni left the team when two other women were signed. She joined the Kansas City Monarchs, the team Jackie Robinson left to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking through the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

            But being the first woman on men’s teams wasn’t easy, and most likely never fun. She was shunned by her teammates, who taunted her and worse. Runners tried to spike her as they slid into second. She came to expect nothing less. “They never let up,” she said.††

            In 1955, after spending most of her time on the Monarchs’ bench, Toni quit playing ball. In 1993, she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She died on November 2, 1996 at the age of 75, but not before making her mark on the game she loved.

                                                _________________________

* Ashwanta Jackson, “This woman shattered the gender barrier in pro baseball,” timeline.com (June 7, 2018).

** “Woman Player Says She Can ‘Take Care of Self’ in Game,” Ebony (June/July 1953), p. 48.

*** “This woman.”

† “This woman.”

†† “Girl Star in Game at League Park Wednesday Night,” Jackson (MS) Advocate (May 2, 1953), p. 2.