Tony Stone broke down gender barriers in the 1950s as one of the first women in men’s professional baseball to play in the Negro leagues. While white women played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a women’s-only league highlighted in the 1992 film A League of their Own, she previously played in all-male teams such as the Indianapolis Clowns and the Kansas City Monarchs.
Stone’s achievement was highlighted in an animated Google scribble on Wednesday A month of black historyan annual holiday when Americans take the time to recognize and honor the accomplishments of black Americans and their central role in shaping American society and history.
Born in 1921, Marsenia Lyle “Tony” Stone learned to play baseball with boys on the city courts of St. Paul, Minnesota, in the 30s and 40s of last century. Her interest in baseball and her preference for pants instead of skirts earned her the nickname “Tomboy.”
When Stone was 16, she started playing games over the weekend with semi-professional teams and eventually left high school to play full-time baseball. She moved to San Francisco in 1943 to live with her sister and soon played for the local American Legionnaires’ Baseball Team.
She began her professional career in the mid-1940s playing for the San Francisco West Lions Baseball League San Francisco, but was disappointed with the team when she learned she was paid less than her male teammates. In 1949, Stone joined the New Orleans Creols as second baseman before signing with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953 to play second again, replacing Hank Aaron, who had recently started his career in the Hall of Fame with the Milwaukee Braves.
She was, in Aaron’s words, “a very good baseball player.”
Although she hit .243 while with the Clowns, Stone was often shunned by her teammates, who were once told, “Go home and make cookies for your husband.”
But Stone, who had worshiped clowns, was not worried.
“A woman also has her dreams,” Stone once confided to his teammate. “When you finish high school, they tell a boy to go out and see the world. What do they say to a girl? They tell her to go to the next door and marry the boy her family has chosen for her. A woman can do many things “
She will play 50 games with the Clowns, reportedly beaten by legendary Negro league pitcher Sachel Page before being transferred to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1954. Stone will retire after the 1954 season due to lack of playing time and move to Oakland, California, to work as a nurse and care for her sick husband until his death in 1987 at the age of 103.
In 1990, Stone was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the Museum with exhibits for women in baseball and the Negro Baseball League. Three years later, she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Her life is the subject of the play Tomboy Stone.
Stone died in 1996 at the age of 75.