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| Toni Stone |
First Woman to Play
Professional Baseball in
Negro League
Editing by Carolyn Bennett
From a 2011 Detroit Metro Times opening game interview with author Martha Ackmann
Women and Social Change
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| Martha Ackmann |
“I write books about women who have changed America,”
Ackmann told Sandra Svoboda. “When I went about searching for a topic for my
next book, I knew I wanted to write about sports because I think sports are a
great window for looking at American culture.…”
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urveball, Ackmann
said, is the story of Toni Stone and the times in which she lived; and besides
her story, it “is the story of Jim Crow America, specifically through the lens
of Negro League baseball.” She said she “wanted to talk about Jim Crow
conditions that Negro League players faced when they traveled around the
country. Certainly there were Jim Crow restrictions all over the country but
particularly in the South,” she said, “so I talked about what would happen when
players tried to get a meal in Washington, D.C.…”
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| "National pastime" |
Always in her books, she said, “I am writing stories about
social change in America; in particular, about how women have faced inequity
especially when they have a very uncommon dream. I have tried to tell that
story in a way that I hope is going to be interesting to a broad audience so
they learn something about American women’s history, they learn something about
sports, and they also learn something about the struggles for equal rights in
our country.”
Remarkable woman and athlete
Toni Stone “was a phenomenal athlete. As a kid she played
every single position. She played a lot of outfield; and by the time she entered
her late teens to early 20s, she was a second-base player.… She played in
Briggs Field (in Detroit, later named Tiger Stadium), one of the many big, big
stadiums like Yankee Stadium and Chicago’s Comiskey Park. She loved playing in big
stadiums and Briggs wasn’t too far from her hometown (St. Paul, Minnesota). Detroit
in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s was a pretty great place to be playing Negro
League ball. There was a lot of support and there were always packed games
where [Stone] felt she got a lot of exposure.”
Discrimination, disrespect
Traveling with teams, Ackmann said, “Sometimes when (Stone)
pulled up to a boarding house or a hotel in the (U.S.) South, the 28 (male members
of the team) would get off the bus and she would be the only woman.
The proprietor would look and say, ‘You
must be a hustler or a prostitute,’ and direct her to the nearest brothel. Toni
eventually had no other choice. She would have to stay there.
She said: ‘These were good girls.’
I think (Stone) saw something of
the outcast in them as she felt herself a marginalized figure.
Surprisingly to her, the good girls
gave her a place to stay and laundered her uniform and sewed padding into the
chest of her uniform so she could take hard throws to the chest, and eventually
she built up a network of brothels where the ‘girls’ would meet her, sometimes
in a car, and take her to the brothel; and show her the respect that she didn’t
find elsewhere.
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| Toni Stone |
Wikipedia note:
Toni Stone (b. July 17, 1921; d. November 2, 1996) became one of the first
women to play as a regular on a big-league professional team in 1953. In 1985 she
was inducted into the Women’s Sports Foundation’s International Women’s Sports
Hall of Fame. In 1990 she was included in two exhibits at the Baseball Hall of
Fame, one on ‘Women in Baseball’ and another on ‘Negro League Baseball’. In
1993 Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame as well as the
Sudafed International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1990, Stone’s hometown of
Saint Paul, Minnesota declared March 6 ‘Toni Stone Day’. Saint Paul also has a
field named after Toni Stone located at the Dunning Baseball Complex.
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urveball: The
Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball
in the Negro League contains tough truths.
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| Martha Ackmann's Curveball |
“I tried to get at the truth, Ackmann said, “and sometimes
the truth cuts … both disturbing and fascinating …. I think it’s very important to (chronicle) that
kind of documentary evidence to try to be a witness to history — especially a
history that not a lot of people know, about a woman who wanted to play America’s
game.”
Toni Stone “… was a wonderful storyteller.” She “had a great
flair for language and knew what the good stories were,” Ackmann said. “I
started (Curveball) long after she
had passed away but one of the things I did was that I tried to find every
single audio or video tape that I could possibly find to hear the tenor and
quality of Toni’s voice; but more importantly (to hear) how she related things.…”
Had the book been researched before Stone died, Ackmann
said, “I would dearly love to (have sat) with her in that beautiful little
Victorian home that she had in Oakland, California. … I would try to get at
what kept her going in the face of such opposition.
How did she manage to continue to
pursue what she loved most? What was the fire in the belly that really kept her
going?
Sources and notes
“The woman who replaced Hank Aaron: Telling the story of
Toni Stone, first female Negro League player” (by Sandra Svoboda, Metro Times’ 2011
Opening Day Issue), published: April 6, 2011, http://metrotimes.com/culture/the-woman-who-replaced-hank-aaron-1.1128410
“Toni Stone’s life and career — from neighborhood pickup
game to cross-country barnstorming to obscurity in retirement — aptly recounted
in Curveball: The Remarkable Story of
Toni Stone, the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League
by Martha Ackmann, a senior lecturer in gender studies at Mount Holyoke College
(Massachusetts).
The author spoke with Metro Times (Detroit) about Toni
Stone, the Negro Leagues and what they mean to America, http://metrotimes.com/culture/the-woman-who-replaced-hank-aaron-1.1128410
Martha Ackmann
Martha Ackmann is a journalist and senior lecturer in gender
studies at Mount Holyoke College. Her specializations: Women athletes, women in
aviation and space, women in national politics, U.S. women’s movements, Emily
Dickinson. She is “a noted feminist and public intellectual” who has appeared
on a variety of U.S. broadcast and print outlets. In addition to Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni
Stone, the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League Ackmann
is author of The Mercury 13: The True
Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight, which is a story of
American women pilots who were secretly tested to be astronauts in the 1960s. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/facultyprofiles/martha_ackmann
Martha Ackmann appeared on the April 1, 2013, edition of
KPFA’s “Letters and Politics,” http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/90273
“Letters & Politics,” hosted by Pacifica’s Mitch
Jeserich, focuses on burning political issues and debates and their historical
context within the United States and worldwide.
Toni Stone
Wikipedia note
Toni Stone (b. July 17, 1921; d. November 2, 1996, also
known by her married name Marcenia Lyle Alberga) was the first of three women
to play Negro league baseball.
This first female player in the Negro Leagues “was not met
with open arms. Most of the men shunned her and gave her a hard time because
she was a woman.” She was barred from the locker room and if lucky allowed to change
in the umpire’s locker room.
Toni Stone (b. July 17, 1921; d. November 2, 1996) became
one of the first women to play as a regular on a big-league professional team
in 1953. In 1985 she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Foundation’s
International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1990 she was included in two
exhibits at the Baseball Hall of Fame, one on ‘Women in Baseball’ and another
on ‘Negro League Baseball’. In 1993 Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports
Hall of Fame as well as the Sudafed International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1990, Stone’s hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota declared March 6 ‘Toni Stone
Day’. Saint Paul also has a field named after Toni Stone located at the Dunning
Baseball Complex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Stone
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