Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone The First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League

by Martha Ackmann

  Tomboy was not immune to the reach of the Klan, even in Saint Paul. In 1923, several universities in the Big Ten had student Klan groups, and units of the Ku Klux Klan existed in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The 1923 University of Minnesota yearbook featured a photograph of a KKK homecoming float rolling down the streets of the Twin Cities.47 At one time in the 1920s the Minnesota KKK published three newspapers and bought twenty acres of land in Owatonna in hopes of creating a “Klan Park”—a development that never materialized, though the Klan owned the land for years.48 Minnesota Klan activities primarily focused on Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and socialists, although the Klan’s reach would have intimidated anyone who was not a white Protestant. Nationally, the Klan’s influence peaked in the early 1920s, when it claimed nearly three million members. By the 1930s, membership had fallen to several thousand men. The 1925 murder conviction of Indiana Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson virtually ended national Klan activities. When Street came to Saint Paul in the 1930s, the Klan’s public demonstrations were almost over: the last Minnesota meeting had been held in 1927. Public displays of racism, however, took other forms. The same year that Street ran his baseball school, Saint Paul’s celebrated International Festival of Nations admitted “confusion” over how blacks would be depicted in a parade. Black residents were represented by a “procession featuring Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, James Weldon Johnson, Marion Anderson, and a group of tap dancers—as indigenous Americans.”49

  By the 1930s, some men like Gabby Street who had been members of the Klan in its early days expressed their beliefs less in violent action and more in personal philosophy. They would not let their racist principles stand in the way of practical or economic pursuits. At times, they even could treat an individual black person or a Catholic with kindness and respect while at the same time denouncing the racial and religious groups the person represented. When the Alabama native Street saw Tomboy Stone return to his baseball school time and time again, he may have seen her passion for the game more than her race, her gender, or her religion. He could make an exception for one black girl who seemed obsessed with baseball without re-evaluating his own racist attitudes toward all black citizens. After watching Tomboy return to his baseball camp so many times with her request to be included, Street finally relented. He temporarily put aside his racist assumptions and told the persistent girl to go out on the field and “show those boys up.”50

  Street later recalled, “I just couldn’t get rid of her until I gave her a chance. Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again.” When Tomboy took to the field at Gabby Street’s baseball school, her ability astonished the old manager. He was impressed with the way she fielded: her neat handling of hard-hit grounders, the way she snuck up on slow rollers and stretched to “spear line drives.” Her batting caught his eye as well. She had discerning judgment and knew when to be patient. Her hitting was a repertoire of long flies, line drives, and “grass cutters.” Street took a liking to Tomboy, and she enjoyed the old catcher as well. As they talked, Tomboy confessed that she wished she had more professional equipment, especially professional baseball shoes like some of the white boys had. My mother couldn’t afford to buy any, she said, neglecting to add that her parents wanted to keep her appetite for baseball under control. “I haven’t anything to do with the color line that keeps your people out of baseball,” Tomboy remembered Street telling her. “And I haven’t got anything with that other unwritten law that keeps women out of the game,” he said. “But if I did …”51 Several days later, on July 17, Tomboy celebrated her fifteenth birthday. The Old Sarge gave her baseball shoes.

  “It was just like a miracle,” Tomboy said.52

  By July of the following year, Gabby Street was gone. He resigned his position with the Saints and joined the hapless St. Louis Browns in the major leagues, first as a coach and later as manager. But after a year and a half with the Browns, Street retired from baseball entirely. Reporters caught up with him at his home in Joplin, Missouri, where Gabby tried to convince them that his life in baseball was happily finished. “Ah,” he said, as he lit his pipe and patted his dog. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the life. No ball club to worry about and no bad front office to be [scared] of. This, I repeat, is the well-known life.”53 When the summer of 1936 came to a close for Tomboy, she had behind her four years of Catholic boys’ league play, over a year of HighLex girls’ softball, a couple of years hanging around the Saint Paul Men’s Meat Packing League, and a hard-earned stint at baseball school with a former World Series manager. The cleats Gabby Street gave her were more than equipment. They were a gift of validation to her—a stranger’s belief that someday she might be able to go forward in baseball. With the shoes neatly placed in their original box and ready to be laced up, Tomboy Stone felt her life in professional baseball was just beginning.

  *Gordon Parks (1912–2006) gained national attention as a photographer, musician, writer, and film director. He is best known for his Life magazine photographs and for directing the 1971 motion picture Shaft.

  *Later in her life, Toni Stone could not remember the exact year she met Gabby Street in Saint Paul. My research into the years Street managed the Saints indicates that he most likely met Stone during the summer of 1936.

  *In his career, Johnson won 417 games, lost 270, and had a 2.36 ERA. Other achievements include striking out 3,508 batters, a record that held until 1983, when it was surpassed by Nolan Ryan. He was the only pitcher to win twenty games and hit .400 in a season. He also ranks third of all time in innings pitched with 5,923, and fifth of all time in complete games with 531. In 1936, Johnson was among the first five players inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame (www.cmgww.com/baseball/Johnson).

  †Street was considered by many to be Johnson’s most effective catcher. He recalled a time when he was out of catching action with an infected foot; a new pair of shoes had given him a serious blister. The foot had become infected, so “the doctor had to stick a knife into it … and I was laid up for eleven days,” he said. The day Street returned to the bench, he watched as a young substitute catcher was unable to handle Johnson’s fastballs. “Walter was just about blowing the little fellow down,” Street remembered. “The ball would handcuff him and go all the way back to the grandstand and all the hitters were doing was striking out and running the bases.” Finally manager Jim McAleer turned to Street and asked, “Can you stand up?” When Street replied that he could hop on one leg, the manager barked back, “Well, then, for God’s sake, get in there and stop that” (Frank Graham, “Setting the Pace,” n.p., n.d. Baseball Hall of Fame, Gabby Street file). During Street’s career in the major leagues he hit .208, with one home run; his field percentage was .974, according to statistics in baseball-almanac.com.

  *Previous accounts of Tomboy’s life described Gabby Street’s baseball school as sponsored by Wheaties breakfast cereal. After consulting numerous Saint Paul historical sources and corporate archives at General Mills, I have been unable to confirm or deny that the school was associated with any Wheaties promotion (e-mail to author from Suzy Goodsell, manager, Internal Communications and Archives, General Mills, December 19, 2007).

  *The ball that Gabby Street caught is enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The ball, a scuffed Spaulding, is commemorated with a plaque: “Attempts to catch a ball dropped from the top of the Washington Monument failed since its 1888 dedication, until Gabby Street succeeded by snaring this ball on August 21, 1908.”

  Barnstorming with the

  Colored Giants

  I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

  I want a peek at the back

  Where it’s rough and untended and

  hungry weed grows.

  A girl gets sick of a rose.

  —GWENDOLYN BROOKS1

  Gabby Street’s baseball camp ended with the close of summer, and fifteen-year-old Tomboy reluctantly returned to classes. “I wasn’t happy going
to school,” she said. “I don’t know if I was slow to start or what, but it was rough.” Tomboy entered the Saint Paul public schools when she was ten, after her family moved from West Virginia. When she turned twelve and was ready for junior high, local teachers recommended Hammond, the district’s school for special education students. Teachers realized that Tomboy had difficulty keeping up with the other youngsters in class, did not appear interested in academic work, and often grew frustrated. She may have had an undetected learning disability, but schools during the Depression rarely had resources for evaluating students’ specific learning problems. Without knowing exactly what her learning difficulty was, Tomboy entered Hammond—a school that emphasized vocational subjects to prepare pupils for work in the trades. Members of the Stone family and others who knew her said Tomboy did have trouble discerning subtleties—academically and socially. As one relative later put it, Tomboy “couldn’t read between the lines.” Her literal mind often caused her to miss nuances. She saw simple explanations where others found complexity. A short attention span and an inability to keep still also contributed to her problems in the classroom. Being labeled a “special child” by educators and her family because she went to Hammond Junior High humiliated Tomboy. She realized the word “special” was a euphemism for intellectually slow, and the label felt patronizing and demeaning to her. “I was in a category of my own,” she said sarcastically. She often would dredge up the phrase “special child” when describing how others viewed her. Tomboy Stone, she said, was the “special child,” an odd, even aberrant girl. That perception eroded her confidence and stole her self-respect at times. Years later, describing herself as a teenager, Tomboy said that “a ‘special child’ [was the] kind of youngster who didn’t have too much love for themselves.”2

  As much as Tomboy felt stigmatized for attending Hammond Junior High, the school did have teachers who found a way to build on the talents they saw in her. “A teacher told me I could use my hands,” Tomboy said, and “Mrs. Covern, Mrs. Van Heusen, Mrs. Egan knew that I loved sports.” Teachers realized, as Father Keefe initially suspected, that if Tomboy could excel in one area, her self-esteem might rise. Florence Egan, Hammond’s physical education teacher, invited her along to watch competitive skaters at the city’s Hippodrome rink. Another teacher spoke to Boykin and Willa Stone about their daughter’s extraordinary reflexes and hand-eye coordination and encouraged them to allow her to join the school’s girls’ sports teams. By Tomboy’s final year at Hammond, in the spring of 1937, she had so distinguished herself as the school’s top athlete that she was the honoredguest at Saint Paul’s Emblem Dinner for junior high school athletes. The Minneapolis Spokesman noted that Miss Stone “is always taking away honors.” Tomboy became the first girl in eighteen years to letter in three sports in a single year: track, high jump, and diamond ball (a Minnesota version of softball). When Tomboy accepted her award at the evening banquet, she acknowledged that Hammond had made a difference in her life, and she thanked Mrs. Egan as well as her principal and her music and social studies teachers for encouraging her athletic abilities.3

  Tomboy’s parents were pleased with her Emblem Dinner recognition since they had long preached the importance of personal accomplishment. “I just want you to be somebody,” Tomboy’s mother told her.4 Willa and Boykin believed there were two ways to get ahead: know the right people and get an education. By the “right people” they meant doctors or lawyers, people who had money or notable achievements. Willa took pride in frequently entertaining the “right people” from Saint Paul’s black community. She would call the local bakery and order special bread for luncheon sandwiches. Tomboy would be put on cleaning detail in order to make the family’s large Victorian home proper and inviting. “Mrs. Boykin Stone,” the newspaper reported, “entertained her mother, Mrs. J. B. Smith of Bluefield, W. Va., with a birthday party … at her home. Several classical selections were given by Miss Johnnie Mae Smith, sister of Mrs. Stone.”5 Tomboy knew her mother could be demanding and called her “the sergeant” when she couldn’t hear. Willa was just as firm as her husband about the importance of personal distinction and independence, and she socialized as a way of “getting ahead” in business. She even went so far as to join different churches from time to time in order to participate in a variety of social activities. At one point, Willa attended the Methodist church, her daughters went to the Catholic church, and her sister Johnnie sang in the Lutheran church choir. Unlike Tomboy, who looked to the Catholic church for moral guidance, Willa viewed her religious involvement as a way of establishing herself in the community. But as much as Willa was concerned about propriety and what the “right people” thought, she eventually did give her daughter permission, of sorts, to follow her heart. She knew Marcenia would never feel at home in a world of ladies’ luncheons and music recitals. As unconventional as playing baseball was for a girl, Willa Stone knew the sport gave her daughter confidence. “If people are going to talk,” she told Tomboy, “then give them something to talk about.”6

  When Tomboy approached her mother with an idea about an even more serious baseball possibility than Catholic league baseball and junior high sports, Willa Stone may have regretted her earlier words. After the interest Gabby Street had shown in her, Tomboy felt emboldened and her baseball aspirations grew. She asked her mother if she could start traveling on weekends with a barnstorming baseball team of black men. The idea developed after one of the teenager’s routine circles around Saint Paul playgrounds looking for pickup baseball games. Tomboy had noticed a group of men taking batting practice at a local park. She may have been hesitant in the classroom, but she rarely was shy on the baseball diamond. She asked the man who seemed to be in charge if she could shag balls for them, and George White said yes. White had once played center field for a semi-pro team and now spent his free time organizing games for area youngsters and managing the local Twin City Colored Giants. “I stayed around them,” Tomboy said, and earned a few bucks for shagging balls. White always had his eye on the lookout for talented young people who could add youth to the traveling Giants team. Most of the players White managed were former semi-pro athletes who had baseball smarts but who were not as fast on the base paths as they once had been. George White had found thirteen-year-old John Cotton playing against a local fast-pitch softball team at Rondo’s Welcome Hall fields. The young second baseman was surprised when Mr. White asked if he would be interested in a Colored Giants tryout over at Como Park. Cotton showed up, did well, and White opened a spot for him on the team. “My mother and uncle knew everyone” on the Giants, Cotton said, and they did not worry about him spending weekends playing in nearby towns. Mrs. Cotton may have thought twice, however, when the team started one-month summer road trips to Canada. John was too young to have any official identification and once was detained at the border when the squad tried to re-enter the United States. Only when the team scrambled to the back of the bus and found a game handbill featuring the young boy’s photograph were border guards convinced that the boy was a ballplayer barnstorming through Ontario and Manitoba.

  When George White discovered that Tomboy could do more on the baseball field than shag balls, he asked if she’d like to join John Cotton and the other Colored Giants and barnstorm on the weekends. “Mother wanted me [close] to her,” Tomboy said, “but I told her it was a way to make a little extra money.” Mrs. Stone gave her daughter permission, and George White gave Tomboy her first professional uniform—a ragtag, used one but a uniform nonetheless. No one on the team made much money, Tomboy admitted. The team would “travel back and forth to Wisconsin,” she said, and “go out of town on the weekend, because [older players] had to hold jobs during the week.” On a typical Sunday, Tomboy would attend St. Peter Claver mass, then get in old cars with the team and drive someplace such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, for a game. She was sixteen and the only girl on the team. “She was a ballplayer,” John Cotton said, plain and simple, and “could throw just like a man.” Tomboy made two or thr
ee dollars a game: the team played percentage or “PC” ball, with the winners earning 60 percent of the gate and the losers 40 percent. Tomboy enjoyed playing with the men, even though some were former semi-pro baseball players and far more experienced athletes than she. Tomboy did not mind being occasionally overmatched on the diamond; it helped improve her game, she thought. Playing for the Colored Giants also gave her a taste for traveling, getting out of her Rondo neighborhood, and meeting new people. “That was good,” she said. “Traveling was the greatest education I could have.”7

  When Tomboy joined the Colored Giants, she became part of a long line of traveling Midwest baseball teams. Black baseball players in Minnesota went as far back as the nineteenth century when Prince Honeycutt, a former Union Army “mess boy,” played for the white Fergus Falls North Stars in 1873. During one game that year, Honeycutt scored eight runs as the North Stars defeated the Big Fellers with the unbelievable high score of 60–54. Two years later, the Fergus Falls team—then named the Musculars—traveled a day and a half by wagon for a game in Perham. This time they were on the receiving end of a defeat, 43–64. Organized black baseball teams first made their appearance in Minnesota in 1876 and achieved prominence in the early part of the twentieth century with the great University of Minnesota first baseman Bobby Marshall. Marshall played for the Saint Paul Colored Gophers against Midwest regional teams including the well-known Chicago Leland Giants. The Colored Gophers and other teams such as the Minneapolis Colored Keystones were so successful that they gave rise to other traveling teams, including the Colored Giants in Duluth, the Hub City Browns in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and the Wonders in Buxton, Iowa. Frequently black ball clubs played white touring teams from Chicago and beyond. When traveling black players came into towns for a game, the residents viewed them as a novelty. Black families in prairie towns were few, and curious white fans packed the stands. But the matchups at times moved beyond novelty and sparked more than a flicker of racial competitiveness as white fans cheered for white teams to beat black ball clubs.8