Photo courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
With all of the excitement about the release of the Negro League Baseball stamps next week, Postmarks thought that it would be fun to share this article from the Harvard Gazette about Toni Stone. Below is a brief excerpt:
Stone was 10 when her parents called in Father Keith, the parish priest, to talk her out of playing baseball. He ended up signing her up in the Catholic Midget League.
By age 15, Stone was playing with a men’s traveling baseball team, the Twin City Colored Giants, as well as in games in the local men’s meatpacking league. She studied baseball strategy from library books and hung around the ball field where the St. Paul Giants practiced, coached by Charles Evard “Gabby” Street, a one-time major league catcher.
The Alabama-born Street, pestered by the quick little infielder, let Stone practice with local boys at his baseball camp. Though reputedly a member of the KKK, he was so impressed with Stone that he gave her her first set of cleats.
When her younger brother Quentin talked about getting into sports, Stone lashed out. “You get your own dreams,” she said. “I’ve got mine.”
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Picture courtesy nwitimes.com
Here's another excerpt from an article in nwitimes.com about Toni Stone and a book that was written about her:
Toni Stone's desire to play baseball was so strong that when her parents expressed concerns she'd never be able to make a living doing so, she told her parish priest that she was going to run away.
But this was a wise priest and he instead got Stone - an African American girl growing up in St Paul, Minn., in the 1930s - on a church team.
Not a softball team - Stone didn't want to play the game girls typically were relegated to. She wanted to play baseball with the boys and so she did. Before long she was playing on the Twin City Colored Giants, a male African American team. But Stone didn't stop there despite catcalls telling her to get married and take care of her husband. She eventually was hired by the Indianapolis Clowns to replace Hank Aaron at second base when he entered Major League Baseball. She went on to play against such greats as Ernie Banks, Willie Mays and Satchel Paige. She batted.364 in 1953 – the fourth highest batting average in the league.
