Toni Stone (1921-1996) broke both gender and racial barriers by becoming the first female professional baseball player in the Negro Major League.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s athlete broke both gender and racial barriers by becoming the first female professional baseball player in the Negro Major League. She is often called "one of the best players you have never heard of.”
Meet Toni Stone.
Marcenia Lyle Stone was born July 17, 1921 in Bluefield, West Virginia,
to Boykin and Willa Maynard Stone. Boykin was a barber, who’d served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Willa was a hairdresser. Together, the couple had four children.
When Marcenia was ten years old, her family moved to the historically Black Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota and opened Boykin's Barber and Beauty Shop.
Marcenia spent most of her days playing baseball with the local boys. At school, she wore pants instead of skirts and was often teased for being a tomboy.
Marcenia’s parents grew worried of their daughter’s love of baseball and break from traditional gender roles.
They asked a priest to talk to Marcenia. But the plan backfired. The priest saw her talent and encouraged her to try out for the St. Peter Claver Catholic Church boys' baseball team. Marcenia was the first girl to win a spot on the squad.
Despite her initial success, Marcenia struggled to get the coach’s time or attention. He wasn’t interested in teaching a girl.In hopes of becoming a better player, Marcenia joined the girls' softball team instead.But she felt softball moved too slow for her, and again she was on the hunt for more instruction.
In 1936, Marcenia hatched a plan to improve her baseball skills. Every day, she would show up to watch the baseball school run by the St. Paul Saints' manager, Gabby Street. After each practice Marcenia would beg him for a tryout. Eventually, he relented and was left impressed by Marcenia’s skill.
A year later, Marcenia got her first real break when she joined the Twin City Colored Giants "barnstorming" team at age sixteen.Barnstorming teams traveled around to small towns, playing exhibition games. Marcenia was paid around $3 per game, and eventually dropped out of high school to play full time.
Marcenia i travelled with the team for six years.
In 1943, she moved to California to be near her sister. She worked odd jobs and settled into the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco. While living there, she adopted a new professional name, "Toni Stone." She met her future husband, Aurelious Pescia Alberga, at a nightclub, and the couple was married in 1950.
After a short time away from the sport, Toni applied to play for an American Legion Baseball team. American Legion Baseball was a national network of amateur baseball teams for teenagers. The teams had a strict age restriction, so Toni posed as a seventeen year old and kept her real age -- 22 a secret. Toni played with the San Francisco team from 1943 to 1945.
Toni then played with the San Francisco Sea Lions of the West Coast Negro League before joining the New Orleans Creoles, a Negro Minor League team, in 1949.
On April 15,, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. Soon, more players from the Negro League were called to the majors, leaving many open roster spots.
In 1953, Toni Stone made sports history when she signed a contract with the Indianapolis Clowns to become the first woman in the Negro Major League. She was hired to fill the second-base position vacated by future hall of famer Hank Aaron when he joined the Milwaukee Braves – now known as the Atlanta Braves. The Indianapolis Clowns were similar to the trick basketball team, The Harlem Globetrotters. Both provided entertainment at games while also playing serious ball.
As one of the first women to play in the Negro Major League, Toni was subjected to harassment from opponents, critics, and fellow teammates. With the rise of integrated baseball, Negro League baseball began to wane. Though Toni’s skills improved the team, its managers hired her as a strategy to sell tickets. When the team's owner suggested that she wear a skirt, however, she refused. Toni insisted on wearing the official uniform.
Publicists for the Indianapolis Clowns did what they could to market Toni and draw larger crowds. They fabricated a biography claiming that she was a graduate of Macalester College -- when in reality Toni had dropped out of high school. They published fake reports of Toni’s seasonal salary, claiming she made $12,000 when she was only paid $400 a month.
There are also reports that the team's management inflated Toni’s batting average to keep the public interested.Toni herself claimed she got a hit off future hall of fame pitcher Satchel Paige during an exhibition game, in an attempt to prove she was more than the hype.
In 1954, Toni’s contract was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs. Her time with the Monarchs was not an enjoyable experience. She was given little playing time and after one season quit the team. Toni retired from baseball and moved back to California with her husband.
Toni continued to coach baseball and played semi professional ball for a short time before becoming a nurse to care for her husband.
Toni's contributions to baseball were largely forgotten until the 1990s. The city of St. Paul declared March 6, 1990 “Toni Stone Day," and named a neighborhood ballpark "Toni Stone Field." She was one of 73 Negro league players honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 and in 1993 she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
On November 2, 1996 Toni Stone died of heart failure at a nursing home in Alameda, California. She was 75 years old.
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