Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone The First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League

by Martha Ackmann

  39. Chicago Defender, May 28, 1953.

  40. Ibid., May 25, 1953.

  41. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink.

  42. Opening Day coverage from Kansas City Call, May 22, 1953; Kansas City Call, May 24; Kansas City Call, May 29, 1953; Chicago Defender, May 16, 1953; Chicago Defender, May 28, 1953; Pittsburgh Courier, June 6, 1953; Norfolk (Virginia) Journal and Guide, May 29, 1953.

  43. Chicago Defender, May 28, 1953; Pittsburgh Courier, May 30, 1953.

  44. Pollock, 63.

  45. Pittsburgh Courier, June 20, 1953.

  46. Kansas City Call, May 5, 1953.

  47. Doug Grow, “League of Her Own: Tomboy Stone Dead at Age 75,” Minneapolis–Saint Paul StarTribune, November 5, 1996.

  48. “Lady Ball Player,” 52.

  49. Pittsburgh Courier, June 20, 1953.

  50. Norfolk (Virginia) Journal and Guide, June 20, 1953.

  51. Dr. J. B. Martin, “Negro League President Comments,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 11, 1953.

  52. Chicago Defender, June 25, 1953.

  53. Dallas Morning News, February 17, 1999.

  54. Washington Post, July 13, 1953.

  55. Atlanta Daily World, August 24, 1953.

  56. Letter from Aurelious Alberga to Toni Stone, July 30, 1953. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  57. Bob Hayes, “To This Ms., Diamond Is Made of Dirt,” San Francisco Examiner, May 4, 1976.

  58. Pollock, 244.

  59. Kansas City Call, July 10, 1953; Chicago Defender, July 2, 1953.

  60. Doug Grow, “She Wasn’t Afraid to Swing for the Fences,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 6, 1990.

  61. Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell shared interview notes with author June 22, 2009.

  62. Bob Motley with Byron Motley, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars (Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 2007), 112.

  63. Kansas City Call, July 31, 1953; Kansas City Call, August 7, 1953; Chicago Defender, July 16, 1953; Chicago Defender, July 30, 1953.

  64. “Lady Ball Player,” 52.

  65. Pollock, 245–246.

  66. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

  67. Belva T. Simmons, Saint Louis Argus, July 31, 1953.

  68. Pollock, 255.

  69. Belva T. Simmons, Saint Louis Argus, July 31, 1953.

  70. St. Louis Globe Democrat, August 8, 1953.

  71. Kansas City Call, August 7, 1953.

  72. Jefferson City (Missouri) Daily Capitol News, August 9, 1953.

  Chapter 8: Keep on at It

  1. Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad, ed., “Evil,” The Poems: 1941–1950 (Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, vol. 2) (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 29.

  2. Jefferson City (Missouri) Daily Capital News, August 9, 1953; Kansas City Call, August 14, 1953; Norfolk (Virginia) Journal and Guide, August 22, 1953; Atlanta Daily World, August 15, 1953; Baltimore Afro-American, August 18, 1953.

  3. Sam Lacy, “A to Z” Baltimore Afro-American, July 21, 1953.

  4. Kansas City Call, August 14, 1953; Chicago Defender, August 13, 1953; Alan Pollock with James A. Riley, ed., Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 150.

  5. Kansas City Call, September 11, 1953; Chicago Defender, September 3, 1953.

  6. Cal Jacox, “Press Box,” Norfolk (Virginia) Journal and Guide, August 8, 1953; Pollock, 248.

  7. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.

  8. Kansas City Call, July 10, 1953.

  9. Bill Kruissink, “First Woman in Pro Baseball Remembers,” Alameda Journal, April 2, 1996.

  10. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.

  11. Pollock, 256.

  12. Ibid., 239.

  13. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester.

  14. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

  15. Pollock, 307, 351.

  16. Ibid., 148.

  17. Ibid., 144.

  18. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester.

  19. Brent Kelley, Voices from the Negro Leagues: Conversations with 52 Black Standouts (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1998), 160.

  20. Pollock, 307.

  21. National Visionary Leadership Project, Oral history with Ernie Banks. http://visionaryproject.org/banksernie.

  22. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary.

  23. Ibid.

  24. “Lady Ball Player,” Ebony, July 1953, 52.

  25. Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.

  26. Maria Bartlow-Reed interviews with the author, July 3, 2006, and March 10, 2008.

  27. Ron Thomas, “Baseball Pioneer Looks Back: Woman Played in Negro Leagues,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1991.

  28. Joseph White, “Female Pitcher in Negro Leagues Enjoyed String ’Em Out,” Seattle Times, May 10, 1998; Eugene Meyer, “For Love of the Game,” Washington Post, February 24, 1999; Contemporary Black Biography vol 40, Ashyia Henderson, ed. (Florence, Kentucky: Gale Group Publishing, 2003); Sports Connection Digest, October 22, 1999; Mamie Belton Johnson Goodman interview with the author, April 18, 2005; Tom Mashberg, “‘Peanut’ a Big Deal: Was Negro League Pioneer,” Boston Herald, July 23, 2000; Jean Hastings Ardell, “Oral History Mamie ‘Peanut’ Johnson: The Last Female Voice of the Negro League,” Nine, vol. 10. 1, 185; Charles Rowe, “Pitcher Johnson a Distinct Figure in Baseball History” Charleston (South Carolina) Post and Courier, February 12, 2000; Brent Kelley, “Peanut Johnson: First Woman to Win a Pro Ballgame,” Sports Collectors Digest, October 22, 1999.

  29. Mamie Belton Johnson Goodman interview with the author, April 18, 2005; Michele Y. Green, A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson (New York: Dial Books, 2002), 37; Eugene Meyer, “For Love of the Game,” Washington Post, February 24, 1999; Mamie Johnson, Mount Holyoke College Public Lecture, April 18, 2005; Kevin Kernan, “Li’l Lady Dazzled Negro League Hit Men,” New York Post, June 3, 2001; Steven Goode, “She Was a Pioneer, Playing Pro Baseball with the Great Ones,” Hartford Courant, September 30, 1999; www.visionarypro-ject.org/johnsonmamie.

  30. Green, 49; Norfolk (Virginia) Journal and Guide, September 24, 1953; Mamie Belton Johnson Goodman interview with the author, April 18, 2005; “Morning Edition,” National Public Radio, February 18, 2003; Ardell, 189; Norfolk (Virginia) Journal and Guide, March 13, 1954.

  31. Donna DeVore interview with Connie Morgan, approximately 1993. Archives of the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum of Philadelphia.

  32. Horace Johnson interview with the author, April 14, 2008; Yvonne Morgan Vinson interview with the author, February 25, 2008.

  33. “Constance Morgan, 61 Female National Negro Leaguer,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 25, 1996.

  34. Donna DeVore interview with Connie Morgan.

  35. Pollock, 256.

  36. Bill Dunhurt, “Afro Americans Honor Connie Morgan,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 19, 1993.

  37. Donna DeVore interview with Connie Morgan.

  38. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Pollock, 268–270; Luix Virgil Overbrea, Chicago Defender, January 2, 1954.

  41. Letter from Aurelious Alberga to Toni Stone, July 20, 1953. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  42. Chicago Defender, September 24, 1953.

  43. Letter from Syd Pollock to Toni Stone, January 2, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  44. Baltimore Afro-American, February 20, 1954.

  45. Pollock, 112.

  46. Thom Loverro, The Encyclopedia of Negro League Baseball (New York: Checkmate Books, 2003), 52.

  47. Letter from Syd Pollock to Toni Stone, January 2, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.
/>
  48. Letter from Bunny Downs to Toni Stone, January 20, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  49. “Lady Ball Player,” 52.

  50. Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail, October 8, 1953; Letter from Bunny Downs to Toni Stone, January 20, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  Chapter 9: A Baseball Has 108 Stitches

  1. Bessie Smith, “Long Road” 1931.

  2. Letter from Syd Pollock to Toni Stone, January 19, 1954; letter from Bunny Downs to Toni Stone, January 20, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  3. Letter from Toni Stone to Syd Pollock, January 26, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  4. Letter from Toni Stone to T. Y. Baird, February 15, 1954; letter from Toni Stone to T. Y. Baird, February 2, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  5. Letter from Toni Stone to Bunny Downs, January 26, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  6. Letter from T. Y. Baird to Toni Stone, March 31, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  7. Larry Lester, “Only the Stars Come Out at Night,” Satchel Paige and Company: Essays on the Kansas City Monarchs, Their Greatest Star and the Negro Leagues, edited by Leslie A. Heaphy (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2007), 113.

  8. Thom Loverro, The Encyclopedia of Negro League Baseball (New York: Checkmate Books, 2003), 310.

  9. Lester, 120; Michael Harkness-Roberto and Leslie A. Heaphy, “The Monarchs: A Brief History of the Franchise,” Satchel Paige and Company: Essays on the Kansas City Monarchs, Their Greatest Star and the Negro Leagues, edited by Leslie A. Heaphy (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2007), 99–100; Phil Dixon with Patrick J. Hannigan, The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History (Mattituck, NJ: Amereon, Ltd., 1992), 149, 151; Loverro, 310.

  10. Lester, 130.

  11. Tim Rives e-mail to author, August 20, 2009.

  12. I am indebted to Tim Rives’s excellent essay “Tom Baird: A Challenge to the Modern Memory of the Kansas City Monarchs” for his analysis of Baird’s KKK associations. Tim Rives, “Tom Baird: A Challenge to the Modern Memory of the Kansas City Monarchs” Satchel Paige and Company: Essays on the Kansas City Monarchs, Their Greatest Star and the Negro Leagues, edited by Leslie A. Heaphy (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2007), 147, 149–152.

  13. Bob Motley interview with the author, June 21, 2009.

  14. Letter from Syd Pollock to Toni Stone, April 1, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  15. Buck O’Neil with Steve Wulf and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time: My Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors (New York: Fireside Books, 1997), 76.

  16. O’Neil, 24, 27, 34, 155; Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, “Carrie’s Gone to Kansas City,” Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop, A History (Oxford University Press, 2006), 28; Roger Niebohr interview with the author, November 19, 2007.

  17. O’Neil, 76; Lew Freedman, African American Pioneers of Baseball. (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2007), 7.

  18. Bob Motley interview with the author, June 22, 2009.

  19. James Bankes, The Pittsburgh Crawfords (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2001), 53.

  20. Bob Motley with Byron Motley, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars (Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 2007), 109.

  21. Donna DeVore interview with Connie Morgan, approximately 1993. Archives of the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum of Philadelphia; Pollock, 252.

  22. Chicago Defender, May 1, 1954; Pittsburgh Courier, May 4, 1954; Chicago Defender, May 8, 1954.

  23. Baltimore Afro-American, July 31, 1954.

  24. Atlanta Daily World, March 25, 1954.

  25. Wilmer Fields, My Life in the Negro Leagues: An Autobiography of Wilmer Fields (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1992), 13, 22.

  26. Bob Motley interview with the author, June 23, 2009; Motley, 142–143; Kansas City Call, May 7, 1954; Atlanta Daily World, May 7, 1954.

  27. Kansas City Call, May 21, 1954.

  28. Kansas City Call, May 21, 1954; Kansas City Call, May 28, 1954; Kansas City Call, June 4, 1954; Chicago Defender, June 5, 1954; Chicago Defender, June 12, 1954; Charles Sandy, “Blues Stadium,” The Best of Remember When: 100 Warm Tales of Life As We Knew It (Kansas City: Kansas City Star Books, 2001), 17.

  29. Michael Carlson, “Buck O’Neil,” The Guardian, October 8, 2006.

  30. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

  31. Paul Dickson, Baseball’s Greatest Quotations (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992), 198.

  32. Steve Jacobson, Carrying Jackie’s Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball and America (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2007), 69, 71.

  33. Tracy Ringolsby, “Will a Woman Ever Make It to the Major Leagues? Stone Rock Solid in Negro League,” Rocky Mountain News, May 11, 1995.

  34. Baltimore Afro-American, July 17, 1954.

  35. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

  36. Kansas City Call, May 14, 1954.

  37. Bob Hayes, “To This Ms., Diamond Is Made of Dirt,” San Francisco Examiner, May 4, 1976.

  38. Wendell Smith, Pittsburgh Courier, August 22, 1953; Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933–1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 389.

  39. Kansas City Call, March 12, 1954.

  40. Bob Gibson and Phil Pepe, ed., From Ghetto to Glory: The Story of Bob Gibson (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968), 21–22.

  41. [Norfolk, Virginia] Journal and Guide, July 3, 1954.

  42. Kansas City Call, May 21, 1954.

  43. Connie Morgan interview with Donna DeVore, approximately 1993. Archives of the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum of Philadelphia.

  44. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.

  45. New York Times, July 12, 1954; New York Amsterdam News, July 17, 1954.

  46. Kansas City Call, July 23, 1954.

  47. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester; Doug Grow’s notes on Toni Stone interview and 1990 visit shared with author December 3, 2007. Grow private archive.

  48. Hayes.

  49. Letter from Toni Stone to Aurelious Alberga, August 11, 1954. Bartlow-Reed private archive.

  50. [Jefferson City, Missouri] Post-Tribune, August 5, 1954; Kansas City Call, September 18, 1954; Kansas City Call, August 7, 1954.

  51. Motley, 113.

  52. O’Neil, 154.

  53. Motley, 111.

  54. Ibid., 2–4.

  55. Larry Lester e-mails to author, August 31, 2009, and November 9. 2009; Ray Doswell e-mail to author, November 15, 2009.

  56. Doc Young, “Toss ’Em Out: Should Girls Play Ball; No, Says Doc,” Chicago Defender, August 28, 1954.

  57. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.

  58. [Norfolk, Virginia] Journal and Guide, October 30, 1954.

  59. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester; Maria Barlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008; Pollock, 276.

  Chapter 10: Happiest Day of My Life

  1. Brooklyn Eagle, August 17, 1949, quoted in Leslie A. Heaphy, The Negro Leagues, 1869–1960 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2002), 225.

  2. Brent Kelley, Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations with 66 More Baseball Heroes (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 299.

  3. Alan J. Pollock, ed. by James A. Riley, Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 174.

  4. Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography (New York: Ecco/Harper Collins, 1998), 118–119.

  5. Diane DuBay, “If You Think No Woman Has Ever Said It Before, You Haven’t Checked History,” Minnesota Women’s Press, February 3–16, 1988, 5.

  6. Ron Thomas, “Baseball’s ‘Intruder’ Loved Game,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1991.

  7. Ernest C. Withers, essay by Daniel Wolfe, ed. by Anthony Decaneas, Negro League Baseball (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc
., 2005), 11.

  8. Carolyn Kleiner Butler, “The Old Ballgames,” Smithsonian, April 2005; Henry Louis Gates Jr. e-mail to author, October 17, 2007; Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Signet, 1964), 25.