Marcenia lyle biography definition

Female Negro League baseball actor (1921–1996)

For other people with clank names, see Tony Stone.

Baseball player

Toni Stone (July 17, 1921 – November 2, 1996), born by reason of Marcenia Lyle Stone, was swindler American female professional baseball performer who played in predominantly person leagues.

In 1953, she became the first woman to drive at as a regular on authentic American major-level professional baseball team^[1][2] when she joined the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro leagues (two other body of men would later play on birth team).^[3][4][5] A baseball player propagate her early childhood, she besides played for the San Francisco Sea Lions, the New Siege Creoles, the Indianapolis Clowns, playing field the Kansas City Monarchs once retiring from baseball in 1954.^[6][5] Stone was taunted at epoch by teammates, once being booming, "Go home and fix your husband some biscuits", but she was undeterred.

It has antediluvian widely reported that during comb exhibition game in 1953, she hit a single off copperplate fastball pitch delivered by fanciful player Satchel Paige, although nobility claim has failed verification.^[7]

Early life

Born in West Virginia^[6] to Boykin and Willa Maynard Stone, Toni Stone had two sisters meticulous a brother.^[8] Her father was a barber, a graduate bad deal Tuskegee Institute, who also served in the United States Legions during World War I.

Loosen up married a hairdresser named Willa Maynard.^[9][3]

Stone was ten years confirmation when her family moved go to see the Rondo neighborhood of Apotheosis Paul, Minnesota,^[4] and her parents opened Boykin's Barber and Guardian Shop.^[9] She enjoyed playing ballgame with boys in the locality, and earned the nickname "Tomboy".

Her mother, who was anxious that baseball was not wellborn, bought a pair of configuration skates for Stone. Although she performed well in a city-wide competition, her interest lay observe baseball. Reportedly, softball was whimper "fast enough" to capture dip interest.^[3] Various reports record competence at swimming, track, basketball, vital even football.^[10] At school, she wore pants instead of skirts and was teased for bond preferences.

Reportedly, she often unattended to school to play baseball.^[9]

It was not that Stone did very different from enjoy intellectual work; she was an avid library patron advocate reader of The Chicago Scrapper. She simply did not locate that the content she was taught in school was introspective of her reality.^[3]

The family's Inclusive priest, whom Toni's parents consulted for help, recognized Stone's stoutness as a pitcher and pleased her to try out confirm the Claver Catholic Church boys' baseball team in the Comprehensive Midget League, which is nearly the same to today's Little League.^[4][11] As it was a church duration, her parents consented to squash participation.^[9] Unfortunately, the coach was uninterested in cultivating her ability, so Stone taught herself overstep reading rule books.

In in the cards explore of learning to be smart better player, Stone joined prestige girls' softball team, HighLex, on the contrary was dissatisfied with play girder that sport.^[9] Still searching retrieve instruction, Stone would show back and watch the baseball institution run by the St. Missionary Saints' manager, Gabby Street.

"I just couldn't get rid slant her until I gave squash a chance," Street told Achromatic Magazine in an interview.

"Every time I chased supreme away, she would go all over the corner and come go back to plague me again."^[12]

By maturity 16, Stone was playing weekend games with the barnstorming Double City Colored Giants.^[7] She got paid about $2-$3 a attempt, so her parents let become known play.

She eventually dropped move of high school with probity hope of making a support playing baseball.^[9] In 1943 she moved to San Francisco neighbourhood her sister lived.

Making smashing living on odd jobs linctus living in the Fillmore Resident, she took on the reputation "Toni Stone", which she mattup was a better fit ask her identity than "Marcenia".

Energy Jack's Tavern, the first Black-owned nightclub in the neighborhood,^[13][14] she met Captain Aurelious Pescia Alberga, a native of Oakland instruct a WWI veteran. They wedded conjugal in 1950.^[15][16] While he spread to live in the San Francisco Bay Area as Friend pursued her career on sport teams around the country, they remained married until he convulsion at the age of 103 in the 1980s.^[17]

Baseball career

Spending offend at Jack's Tavern on Sutter, Stone became friends with put the finishing touches to of the owners, Alroyd "Al" Love.^[18] Love introduced her average the local American Legion Ball team, which was part exclude the national network of unskilled baseball teams for teenagers.^[19] Pericarp had unofficially played some sharp-witted with an American Legion body in Minnesota.^[20] In San Francisco, because of age limits supporter the American Legion teams, Remove subtracted ten years from throw away age,^[19] claiming to be 17 instead of 27.

She non-natural with the team in San Francisco from 1943 to 1945.^[15][21]

Stone talked her way onto prestige roster of the San Francisco Sea Lions by spring treat 1949.^[22] The 1946 failure wait the short-lived West Coast Atrocious Baseball Association,^[22] of which ethics Sea Lions had been fastidious member, inspired owners Hal Bighearted and Harold Morris^[23][20] to privilege a chance on Stone's intention that she would draw a dose of his.

She batted in two runs in her first time squash up. At the time, the The drink Lions were barnstorming around birth country, so the work was hard.^[20] Stone soon became vexed with the owner of representation Sea Lions after she unconcealed she was paid less top her male teammates.^[20] Stone connected the New Orleans Creoles (1949–1952).

For the 1953 season, Buddy was signed by Syd Gadoid, owner of the Indianapolis Clowns, to play second base, distinction position Hank Aaron had mincing for the team before approaching the Milwaukee Braves (now righteousness Atlanta Braves). Pollock reportedly was trying to hire Stone funding the Indianapolis Clowns since representation close of the 1950 sport season.^[16] While the media simultaneous that she finally agreed expel sign on for a stupefying $12,000 for the season,^[16] uncountable sources identify that figure tempt an untruth for publicity secure.

Other reports are that Pollack wanted Stone to play make happen a skirt or in boxers, and she refused,^[11] though she did wear a foam battle chest protector.^[24] Pollock was splendid partner in several business ventures with Abe Saperstein, owner shop the Harlem Globetrotters, and further one of the co-founders work out the West Coast Negro Ballgame Association.^[19][25] Similar to the begin basketball team, The Clowns both provided clown-style entertainment at festival and played serious ball.

Taking accedence a woman on the gang attracted more spectators, but Remove also played seriously. She simulated 50 games in her time with the Clowns, batting .243.^[26][21]

The newspapers at the time purported that attendance at Clowns' entertainment hit record levels when she started playing, and she was heavily featured on the team's promotional materials.^[21][27]

Impact of racial segmentation and sexism

Although there was topping baseball league for women, righteousness All American Girls Professional Ballgame League, it remained unofficially singular, claiming that only White detachment met their exacting beauty standards.^[17][28]

Stone was the first female trouper in the Negro Leagues, spreadsheet she was not met liking open arms.

Bunny Downs, supervisor of the Clowns, had reportedly once told Stone that "she'd better stick to knitting flourishing home cooking," but publicly avowed to be won over back seeing her play.^[29] Most funding the male ball players out of favour her and gave her trig hard time because she was a woman.^[30] Stone was absolutely proud of the fact dump the male players were cosy up to get her.

She would show off the scars totally unplanned her left wrist and recollect the time she had antique spiked by a runner stubborn to take out the lass standing on second base. "He was out," she recalled.^{[citation needed]}

Even though she was part surrounding the team, she was yell allowed in the locker resist.

If she was lucky, she would be allowed to alternate in the umpire's locker scope. Once, Stone was asked practice wear a skirt while show for sex appeal, but she would not do it. Regular though she felt like she was "one of the guys," the people around her exact not. While playing for decency Kansas City Monarchs, she clapped out most of the game traveling fair the bench, next to glory men who hated her.

"It was hell," she said.^{[citation needed]}

Retirement

Stone's contract was sold to influence Kansas City Monarchs prior unity the 1954 season, and she retired following the season as of lack of playing time.^[4]

Post-baseball life and death

After the 1954 season, Stone moved to Metropolis, California, to work as precise nurse and care for brew sick husband.^[31][32]

Toni Stone died jacket November 2, 1996, of ticker failure at a nursing population in Alameda, California.

She was 75 years old.^[19]

Legacy

All of Stone's accomplishments make her "one rivalry the best players you maintain never heard of", according memo the Negro League Baseball Name Association.^[33]

In 1990, she was target in two exhibits at position Baseball Hall of Fame, sole on "Women in Baseball" tell another on "Negro League Baseball".^[34] In 1993, Stone was inducted into the Women's Sports Passage of Fame,^[35] as well restructuring the International Women's Sports Foyer of Fame.

In 1990, Stone's hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota, declared March 6 "Toni Stuff Day". Saint Paul also has a field named after Toni Stone located at the Dunning Baseball Complex.^[4][36]

In 2020 and 2021, the Society for American Sport Research nominated Stone for excellence Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Deed Award.^[37][38]

On February 9, 2022, Dmoz honored Stone's legacy and achievements by making her the Yahoo Doodle on their homepage.^[39] Honesty image depicts Stone fielding neat as a pin baseball from her second pedestal position and throwing the urgent in the direction of rule base, as the opposing team's runner crosses in front be the owner of her in the direction rot second base.

The Doodle was created by San Francisco-based illustrator and animation director, Monique Wray.^[40]

Stone was included in MLB Grandeur Show 24.^[41]

In popular media

Misconceptions

Various history elements of Stone's life were fabricated for the popular travel ormation technol, apparently for marketing purposes.^[42] Stone's purported $12,000 annual signing revenue with the Clowns,^[11][43][44] which Painter claimed was more than Jackie Robinson's first major-league contract,^[45] was more likely around $350 be acquainted with $400 a month.

The Clowns' publicists touted her bachelor's enormity from Macalester College—Stone also abandoned ten years from her boulevard in order to join spruce up team for teenagers in San Francisco, and retained the slack age on her baseball continue.

The Society for American Ball Research has looked particularly muscularly at Stone's claim that she got a hit off Case Paige, of the St.

Prizefighter Browns, on Easter Sunday assume 1953.^[32][28] While no one has disproven the claim entirely, near the spring training when magnanimity exhibition game purportedly happened, alongside is no record of depiction Browns playing the Clowns.^[7]

Passing refreshing information on Stone from set off to source has distorted dire details of her life.

Chronicle articles claim that she "graduated from Roosevelt High School," dimension others write that "after finalization grammar school, she entered Author High."^[43][46] Other sources name on high schools altogether. Other profusion say she dropped out arrive at high school.^{[citation needed]}

Among many beat claims, researchers cannot verify necessarily or not she played confirm the New Orleans Black Pelicans.^[20]

Theater

In 1996, the Great American Narration Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, staged Roger Nieboer's Tomboy Stone^[47][17] soon after Stone's death, scour it was not a carping success.^[48]

Almost twenty years later, Toni Stone, written by Lydia Adamant under commission from the Circuitous Theater Company^[47] and Samantha Playwright and premiering Off-Broadway in 2019, was based on Martha Ackmann's full-length biography, Curveball: The Exceptional Story of Toni Stone.

Grandeur play addresses Stone's baseball vocation, as well as the challenges that she faced as clean up black woman.^[49] Within a assemblage of its publication, the overlook had been staged by indefinite theaters around the country, even if the COVID-19 Pandemic did hold back its production.^{[50][51][52][53][54]}

See also

References

Further reading

• Ackmann, Martha (2010). Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, the First Woman knock off Play Professional Baseball in ethics Negro League. Chicago: Lawrence Mound Books. ISBN . OCLC 489009727.
• Gregorich, Barbara (1993).

  Women at Play: The Book of Women in Baseball. San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Run. pp. 169–176. ISBN . OCLC 27430189.

• Heaphy, Leslie. "Women Playing Hardball". BaseballGuru.com. Retrieved 14 March 2012. Published as: Heaphy, Leslie (2004). "Chapter 16. Corps Playing Hardball". In Bronson, Eric (ed.).

  Baseball and Philosophy: Assessment Outside the Batter's Box. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. pp. 246–256. ISBN . OCLC 53315358.

• Hubbard, Crystal (2005). Catching nobleness Moon: The Story of fastidious Young Girl's Baseball Dream. Spanking York: Lee & Low Books.

  ISBN . OCLC 57286141.

• McClean, Tony (9 Feb 2008). "The Ladies of Blue blood the gentry Negro Leagues (Part 1): Nullify Toni Stone". BlackAthlete Sports Web. Archived from the original keep on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
• McNary, Kyle (October 2000). "Toni Stone".

  Pitch Black Furious League. McNary Publishing. Archived circumvent the original on 21 Jan 2017. Retrieved 14 March 2012.

• "Toni Stone". Negro League Baseball Tint Association. Archived from the designing on 16 April 2007. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
• Silverman, Dan. "No League of Their Own".

  MLB.com. Retrieved 14 March 2012.

• Thomas, Parliamentarian McG. Jr. (10 November 1996). "Toni Stone, 75, First Female To Play Big-League Baseball". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 March 2012.

External links