Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone The First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League
Page 25
Later in the weekend, players gathered in a ballroom for presentations of medallions by Henry Aaron. Some questioned Cooperstown’s commitment to inducting additional former Negro League players into the Hall of Fame. For the seventy-four men and one woman in the room, the unfinished work of equality was much on their minds, and they continued to prod. As the Hall of Fame representative concluded his official remarks, a small, high-pitched voice straining from the back of the room asked to be recognized. “Could I say something now, huh? I would like to thank those people who let me come to this deal,” a woman began. As her words began to flow, it was as if Toni had found what she hoped to say in the book she never wrote. “This is Toni Stone Alberga. I had an opportunity to play with some of the finest guys in the whole country. I started out in New Orleans…. It was barnstorm. Hand hungry. Just like Hank said. Tighten your belts up. That was it. Now when you get on the old bus you was hungry after that two dollars, you know. They thought I would leave and not come back, ’cause things were tough. Nuh uh. Baseball is my game. And I have seen a lot of these old-timers that I have to thank. Sometimes they pat me on the back, next time they use the foot. But I’m thankful! I’m thankful! Because I learned when I was in school. They told me Babe Ruth was a great guy. He’s a great guy, alright. But I had Josh Gibson. He’s a great guy, too. So, I feel highly honored and thanks … to all of you guys for seeing I was here, OK?”45
Like many athletes who can’t recall the date of an individual game from fifty years ago, but who can remember the exact arc of a single curveball, Toni could conjure up the happiest day of her life. It was a Sunday. She was barnstorming. Old Satchel Paige was on the mound playing a game for cash, then catching a train to pitch with his own team. As he often did, Satch would ask batters what pitch they wanted: fast or slow, inside or straight up the middle. So confident of his abilities, Paige would serve a player the ball just the way he liked it—then smile as the opponent swung wildly and missed. When Toni came up to bat, she knew Paige would give her the same treatment. “Hey, T.,” he yelled. “How do you like it?” Toni was nervous, shaking even, but played along and yelled back, “It doesn’t matter. Just don’t hurt me.” Satchel wound up. Would the pitch be Paige’s famous hurry up ball, the bat dodger, the two-hump blooper, or the bee ball? All Toni could see was Satchel’s big front shoe rearing high for the kick. He let loose. The pitch raced toward her, buzzing like a swarm of bees, and broke inside. She swung, connected, and the white ball sailed over second base for a hit. Toni was so surprised and happy with the single that she started laughing on her way to first base. When she turned around Satchel was laughing, too. “It was a lulu,” Toni said. The first baseman, none too pleased that a woman had a hit off Satchel Paige, mumbled as she rounded the base. “You’re a fool,” he said. “The hell I am,” Toni responded, and kept on running.46
Toni Stone Alberga died November 2, 1996, in Alameda, California. The cause of death was heart failure.
*The Kansas City Monarchs also hold the distinction of having fourteen former players and club owner J. L. Wilkinson enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame. The players are Ernie Banks, Cool Papa Bell, Willard Brown, Andy Cooper, Willie Foster, Pop Lloyd, Jose Mendez, Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Bullet Rogan, Cristobal Torriente, Turkey Stearns, Hilton Smith, and Willie Wells.
*Ernest Withers (1922–2007) took some of the most iconic photographs of the U.S. civil rights movement, including images of the 1962 integration of Ole Miss, the funeral of Medgar Evers, the Little Rock Nine, and Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel after the 1966 March Against Fear. Withers also documented the Memphis music scene and photographed Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, and others.
†Roy Bryant and J. W. Milan, the acquitted defendants in the Emmett Till murder trial, later boastfully confessed to the killing in Life magazine.
*The Boston Red Sox were the last major league team to integrate when they signed second baseman Elijah Jerry “Pumpsie” Green in 1959.
*Connie Morgan’s grave is Block 1, Lot 138, Grave 2 in Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.
*The 1972 legislation brought more equitable treatment to women and girls in educational programs receiving federal assistance. The most well-known aspect of the Educational Amendments of 1972 was Title IX, which called for equal funding of girls’ and women’s sports programs in federally funded schools. Since Title IX became law, girls’ participation in high school sports has increased 904 percent, 456 percent on the college level. Research also has shown that high school girls participating in sports are less likely to use drugs or become pregnant and are more likely to earn higher grades and graduate than their non-participating counterparts (data from Women’s Sports Foundation).
*The baseball complex in Toni Stone’s name is located at 1227 Marshall Avenue in Saint Paul’s Dunning Field Complex. It was dedicated in 1997. Roger Nieboer’s play Tomboy Stone premiered in Saint Paul in January 2007.
Acknowledgments
I have been the lucky recipient of much help in writing Curveball and would like to thank family, friends, colleagues, and fellow baseball researchers for their generosity in making this book possible. Their advice made this book better; any errors are my own. Members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) showed me a zeal for the study of baseball that I found enormously fun and inspiring. I would like to recognize Jean Hastings Ardell, Tom Garrett, Leslie Heaphy, Kyle McNary, Wayne Stivers, and Stew Thornley for their assistance. Larry Lester deserves special recognition. His attention to detail, suggestions, and encouragement (“Go, Toni, Go!”) meant the world to me.
Research for this book took me all over the country—into archives, bookstores, barbershops, libraries, newspaper offices, jazz halls, baseball parks, church basements, museums, and people’s homes. It was a great way to spend a couple of years. For their help, I would like to thank Leah Aquillar, Ernie Banks, Maria Bartlow-Reed, Donna DeVore, Ray Doswell, Doug Grow, Brendan Henehan, Steve Horn-bostel, Wendell Maxey, Roger Nieboer, Naja Palm, Andrew Salinas, David Sanford, Miki Turner, and Walt Wilson. I also would like to acknowledge Christopher Benfey, Constance H. Buchanan, Tara Fitzpatrick, Suzanne Juhasz, Donal O’Shea, and Susan Perry for paving the way for this book. The wonderful Research and Instructional Support (RIS) staff at Mount Holyoke College’s Williston Memorial Library, particularly James Gehrt, Chrissa Godbout, and Leigh Mantle, cheerfully bailed me out and plugged me in. My 2008–2009 year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was a dream come true and I am grateful for generative conversations with my “fellow fellows,” especially Gail Mazur. Friends, of course, offer help of a more personal kind, and I am grateful for the support and good humor of Christina and Sara Barber-Just (who also suggested the book’s title) as well as James Fitzpatrick, Donna Gaylord, Janet Schulte, Sherril Willis, and Kathy Dempsey Zimmerman.
Uncovering this forgotten story proved to be a prodigious challenge, and I was aided by exceptional research assistants. Mary McClintock has long been my go-to detective for locating difficult-to-find materials. At the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard students Rachael Goldberg ’12 and Spencer Lenfield ’12 brought both results and joy to the research process. Mount Holyoke College student assistants Betsy Johnson ’11, Megan Mallory ’04, Rachel Mallory ’07, and Tse-hay Shaw ’06 were dedicated researchers, especially when it came to reading endless reels of microfilm. During her four years at Mount Holyoke, Becca Groveman ’09 stayed with this project from start to finish and showed up at my office door always with a smile on her face and an important idea to share. I would be remiss if I did not recognize the help of my father, Florenze Ackmann, who offered a hand whenever I needed research back home in Missouri. My nephews, Christian Ackmann and Jonathan Ackmann, brought their keen eyes and impressive knowledge of baseball in helping me research the Kansas City Monarchs.
Over the years my literary agent, Ellen Geiger, has given me an endless supply of ideas and encouragement. I
appreciate her potent combination of persistence and open-mindedness. Cynthia Sherry, Michelle Schoob, and Gerilee Hundt of Chicago Review Press have made this book tighter and sharper. I am lucky to have an editor like Cynthia Sherry who believes, as David Halberstam once observed, that every great sports story is also the story of a nation.
The gift of time is one of the most valuable beneficences a writer can receive. I would like to acknowledge several organizations that have afforded me that luxury. This work is supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Mount Holyoke College, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Society for the Study of American Baseball Research, and a Collaborative Gender and Women’s Studies Research Grant awarded to Scripps College by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Ann Romberger encouraged me to return to an earlier passion and write about baseball again. We have attended Boston Red Sox games for three decades—through all the “almost” seasons and those two recent World Series wins. We both know how the sport can exhilarate and break your heart. In a way, Ann has been like the trusted coach Toni Stone always hoped to find—someone who stood on first and cheered you home. Her support has been incalculable. As usual, Yogi Berra may have stumbled upon the best way to put it—how to measure what defies quantifying. “You give 100 percent in the first half of the game,” Yogi said, “and if that isn’t enough in the second half, you give what’s left.”
Leverett, Massachusetts
August 17, 2009
Notes
Prologue
1. “He rubbed shoulders with greats of the game.” [Norfolk] Virginian-Pilot, August 19, 1991.
2. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
3. Chicago Defender, May 16, 1953.
4. Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports (HBO documentary, Ross Greenberg, executive producer), 1999.
5. Ernie Banks interview with the author, September 4, 2009.
6. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Cooperstown, NY.
7. My thanks to Kyle McNary, who generously shared the recording of his conversation with Toni Stone. McNary’s telephone interview with Stone took place in September 1993. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations in the prologue are taken from this interview. McNary is such an ardent scholar of Negro League baseball that he named his daughter Clare Double Duty Radcliffe McNary. Damon Runyon nicknamed Theodore Roosevelt Radcliffe “Double Duty” after Radcliffe played in two successive Negro Leagues World Series games—first as a catcher, then as a pitcher.
8. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, June 6, 2006.
9. Evelyn Fairbanks, Days of Rondo (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990), 111.
10. Minneapolis Spokesman, June 4, 1943.
11. Ibid., August 30, 1937.
12. McNary recounting his interviews with former Negro League players; Toni Stone interview with McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
Chapter 1: A Question of Sin
1. Countee Cullen, “Two Who Crossed a Line,” Color (New York: Harper & Brothers Company, 1925), 16.
2. Mike Weaver, “Female Player Was a Minority of One,” San Jose Mercury News, August 11, 1991.
3. Bob Hayes, “To This Ms., Diamond Is Made of Dirt,” San Francisco Examiner, May 4, 1976.
4. Ibid.
5. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.
6. Melvin Carter Sr. interview with the author, May 20, 2008.
7. Toni Stone interview with Bill Krussink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.
8. Patti Schuck interview with the author, May 14, 2008.
9. Mark J. Moore, “Negro League First Female Player Recalls Life, Career in Pro Baseball,” n.p., n.d. Lester private archive; Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.
10. Hayes; Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
11. Melvin Carter Sr. interview with the author, May 20, 2008.
12. Toni Stone interview with Miki Turner, August 1992. Turner interview notes shared with author July 10, 2009; Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.
13. Stew Thornley, “Pay Days” (Ramsay County History vol. 23, no. 1, 1988), 22.
14. Brendan Henehan interview with the author, November 19, 2007.
15. E-mail from Lakeishia S. Richardson, June 10, 2008. I am indebted to Richardson for her research at Tuskegee in locating Boykin Stone among students listed in the Tuskegee Institute Bulletin for 1908–1909.
16. Melvin Carter Sr. interview with the author, May 20, 2008.
17. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.
18. Evelyn Fairbanks, Days of Rondo (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1990), 1.
19. Steven Hoffbeck, ed., Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2005), 55.
20. Fairbanks, 42; H. Janabelle Taylor Murphy interview with the author, November 18, 2007.
21. Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community as Told to Kateleen Jill Hope Cavett of Hand in Hand Productions (Minneapolis: Syren Book Company, 2005), 87.
22. Remembering Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence (Saint Paul: Remembering Rondo Committee, 1995), 13.
23. Mark J. Moore, “Negro League First Female Player Recalls Life, Career in Pro Baseball,” n.p. n.d. Lester private archive.
24. Jimmy Griffin with Kwame J. C. McDonald, Jimmy Griffin, A Son of Rondo: A Memoir (Saint Paul: Ramsay County Historical Society, 2001), 20.
25. Quincy Mills interview with the author, June 4, 2008. I am indebted to Professor Mills of Vassar College for his help in understanding the culture of “color-line barbers” in the 1930s.
26. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, December 14, 2008.
27. Remembering Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence (Saint Paul: Remembering Rondo Committee, 1995), 6.
28. David Taylor, African Americans in Saint Paul (Saint Paul, Minnesota, Historical Society Press, 2002), 42.
29. James Griffin. Voices of Minnesota Radio Series (Minnesota Historical Society, Minneapolis, MN).
30. Fairbanks, 73.
31. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.
32. Fairbanks, 85.
33. “The Duluth Tragedy,” [Mankato, Minnesota] Daily Free Press, June 7, 1920.
34. Terry Kolb, “St. Peter Claver Member Recounts Struggles with Racism,” The Catholic Spirit. http://extra.thecatholicspirit.com/heritage/st-peter-claver-member-recounts.html.
35. Fairbanks, 150.
36. Ibid., 150–160.
37. Ibid., 108. The rink was integrated by 1940.
38. Voices of Rondo, 21.
39. Fairbanks, 160.
40. Ibid., 31, 41, 75.
41. Toni Stone interview with Miki Turner, August 1992. Turner interview notes shared with author July 10, 2009.
42. H. Janabelle Murphy Taylor interview with the author, November 18, 2007.
43. Voices of Rondo, 53.
44. Ibid., 51.
45. Doug Grow, “Rondo Kids Were Tough, but ‘Tomboy’ Toughest,” Minneapolis–Saint Paul StarTribune, January 3, 1991 (manuscript version from Grow personal archive).
46. Dorothy Snell Curtis, Changing Edges (1990), quoted in Minnesota Historical Society, “In Their Own Words: Minnesota’s Greatest Generation” exhibit.
47. Hayes.
48. Norman Rollins interview with the author, May 21, 2008. Rollins said Rondo nicknames stuck so well that seventy years after their childhood people could not remember what a friend’s legal name was. When Lester Howell died, Rollins said, no one knew who “Lester” was. Howell was forever “Rock Bottom” to all his child
hood friends.
49. Hayes; Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.
50. Fairbanks, 98–99.
51. Hayes; Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
52. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
Chapter 2: Miracle in Saint Paul