Toni Stone

Toni Stone (July 17, 1921 – November 2, 1996), born as Marcenia Lyle Stone, was an American female professional baseball player who played in predominantly male leagues.

In 1943 she moved to San Francisco where her sister lived.

Making a living on odd jobs while living in the Fillmore District, she took on the name "Toni Stone", which she felt was a better fit for her identity than "Marcenia".

At Jack's Tavern, the first Black-owned nightclub in the neighborhood, she met Captain Aurelious Pescia Alberga, a native of Oakland and a WWI veteran.

She played with the team in San Francisco from 1943 to 1945.

The 1946 failure of the short-lived West Coast Negro Baseball Association, of which the Sea Lions had been a member, inspired owners Hal King and Harold Morris to take a chance on Stone's argument that she would draw crowds.

Stone talked her way onto the roster of the San Francisco Sea Lions by spring of 1949.

They married in 1950.

In 1953, she became the first woman to play as a regular on an American major-level professional baseball team when she joined the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro leagues (two other women would later play on the team).

It has been widely reported that during an exhibition game in 1953, she hit a single off a fastball pitch delivered by legendary player Satchel Paige, although the claim has failed verification.

Born in West Virginia to Boykin and Willa Maynard Stone, Toni Stone had two sisters and a brother.

Her father was a barber, a graduate of Tuskegee Institute, who also served in the United States Army during World War I.

He married a hairdresser named Willa Maynard.

Stone was ten years old when her family moved to the Rondo neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota, and her parents opened Boykin's Barber and Beauty Shop.

She enjoyed playing baseball with boys in the neighborhood, and earned the nickname "Tomboy".

Her mother, who was worried that baseball was not ladylike, bought a pair of figure skates for Stone.

Although she performed well in a city-wide competition, her interest lay with baseball.

Certainly, softball was not "fast enough" to capture her interest.

Various reports record skill at swimming, track, basketball, and even football.

At school, she wore pants instead of skirts and was teased for her preferences.

Reportedly, she often skipped school to play baseball.

It was not that Stone did not enjoy intellectual work; she was an avid library patron and reader of The Chicago Defender.

She simply did not find that the content she was taught in school was reflective of her reality.

The family's Catholic priest, whom Toni's parents consulted for help, recognized Stone's strength as a pitcher and encouraged her to try out for the Claver Catholic Church boys' baseball team in the Catholic Midget League, which is similar to today's Little League.

Because it was a church activity, her parents consented to her participation.

Unfortunately, the coach was uninterested in cultivating her skill, so Stone taught herself by reading rule books.

In hopes of learning to be a better player, Stone joined the girls' softball team, HighLex, but was dissatisfied with play in that sport.

Still searching for instruction, Stone would show up and watch the baseball school run by the St. Paul Saints' manager, Gabby Street.

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

"Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again."

By age 16, Stone was playing weekend games with the barnstorming Twin City Colored Giants.

She got paid about $2-$3 a game, so her parents let her play.

She eventually dropped out of high school with the hope of making a living playing baseball.

A baseball player from her early childhood, she also played for the San Francisco Sea Lions, the New Orleans Creoles, the Indianapolis Clowns, and the Kansas City Monarchs before retiring from baseball in 1954.

Stone was taunted at times by teammates, once being told, "Go home and fix your husband some biscuits", but she was undeterred.

While he continued to live in the San Francisco Bay Area as Stone pursued her career on baseball teams around the country, they remained married until he died at the age of 103 in the 1980s.

Spending time at Jack's Tavern on Sutter, Stone became friends with one of the owners, Alroyd "Al" Love.

Love introduced her to the local American Legion Baseball team, which was part of the national network of amateur baseball teams for teenagers.

Stone had unofficially played some ball with an American Legion team in Minnesota.

In San Francisco, because of age limits for the American Legion teams, Stone subtracted ten years from her age, claiming to be 17 instead of 27.