Toni Stone Field

Toni Stone was born in West Virginia and moved to St. Paul in her youth. From a young age Stone had a love for the great American sport of baseball and she did everything in her power to make sure she could play. At the age of ten, Stone became the only female member of the St. Peter Claver Catholic Church boys' baseball team. Stone loved the game and would become one several pioneering Black women to play the game professionally.  

Women's teams were rare but so was her talent, so at the age of 15 Stone played for the St Paul Giants, a semi-professional men's team. A few years later in 1949, Stone's professional career began, she played for the San Francisco Sea Lions but left following a pay dispute where she believed that she had not been paid the same amount as she had been promised. In 1953, Stone signed a contract with the Black Pelicans of New Orleans. The Pelicans were comparable to the Harlem Globetrotters in the way that when the team not only played and usually bested their opponents, but they also performed to entertain the crowd in the process. The team believed that having a woman on their team would make it even more compelling to the public. Prior to the season of 1954, Stone joined the Kansas City Monarchs, finishing out her baseball career and then switching careers to become a nurse.

Discrimination was something that Stone faced daily in baseball, even from her teammates. Since she was one of the only women on each team, there were rarely any accommodations for her in the locker room so she usually had to use the umpire’s locker room. Stone was even asked at one point to wear a skirt while playing ball in hopes of increasing the novelty or sex appeal of her play. Stone refused and later told Ebony magazine that ““There’s always got to be a first in everything” and she often endured slights and outright sexism to pave a way for other women in the sport. 

In 1993 Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame as a way to thank her for breaking gender and color barriers in American sport. Stone is a legacy, she was persistent and never took no for an answer.

Jackson, Ashawnta. “This Woman Shattered the Gender Barrier in pro Baseball.” Medium, Timeline, 7 June 2018, timeline.com/toni-stone-first-woman-pro-baseball-206e26cb27ae.

Ackmann, Martha. Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League. Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, Ill, 2010.

Teeman, Tim. "Toni Stone, History-Making Baseball Legend, Hits a Home Run on Stage: Toni Stone was the First Woman to Play Professionally in baseball’s Negro Leagues. A Brilliant Play Recalls the Prejudices of the time—and Her Triumph to Play the Game She Loved." The Daily Beast, 2019.