Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone The First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League
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1. Florida Department of State, Bureau of Archives and Record Management, Bethune Index.
2. Holly Woolard, “It’s Etched in Stone—She’s a Women’s Hall of Famer,” Marin Independent Journal, October 3, 1993.
3. Miki Turner, “And Still She Rose,” Oakland Tribune, August 28, 1992; Bob Hayes, “To This Ms., Diamond Is Made of Dirt,” San Francisco Examiner, May 4, 1976.
4. Baltimore Afro-American. July 17, 1954.
5. “The Gal on Second Base,” Our World, Vol. 8, No. 7, July 1953.
6. Armand Peterson e-mail to author, January 3, 2008.
7. Roger Nieboer interview with the author, November 19, 2007.
8. Bill Kruissink, “First Woman in Pro Baseball Remembers,” Alameda Journal, April 2, 1996.
9. Evelyn Fairbanks, Days of Rondo (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1990), 142.
10. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
11. Norman Rollins interview with the author, June 11, 2008.
12. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
13. Ibid.
14. Diane DuBay, “I Just Wanted to Play Ball.” Minnesota Women’s Press, February 3–16, 1988, 5; Jady Yaeger Jones interview with the author, August 9, 2006.
15. Erin Egan, “Toni Stone Was One of the Only Women to Ever Play Pro Ball with Men,” Sports Illustrated for Kids, April 1, 1994, 26.
16. “Honoring a Local Hero,” Minnesota Women’s Press vol. 5, no. 25, March 14–27, 1990, 11.
17. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.
18. Ron Thomas, “She Made It a League of Her Own,” Emerge, May 1986, 60.
19. Ibid.
20. Mark Moore, “Negro League’s First Female Player Recalls Life, Career in Pro Baseball,” n.p., n.d. Lester private archive.
21. www.chicagodefender.com/article-1369-about-us.html.
22. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.
23. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive; Sandy Keenan, “Stone Had a Ball,” Newsday, October 5, 1993.
24. Allen McMillan, “Four Clubs Battle for Top Baseball Honors in New York,” Chicago Defender, September 28, 1935.
25. Hayes; Diane DuBay, “I Just Wanted to Play Ball,” Minnesota Women’s Press, February 3–16, 1988, 5.
26. Harry T. Brundidge, “Gabby Street, a Fighter All His Life, Spurns Title of Miracle Man, but Career Shows He Deserves It,” Sporting News, October 2, 1930.
27. “Watermelon seed” comment was Ty Cobb’s. Both the watermelon reference and Cobb’s quotation are from www.cmgww.com/baseball/johnson.
28. Alan Gould, “Gabby Street: Ace of the Cards,” n.p., n.d. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY. Gabby Street file.
29. Porter Wittich, n.p., n.d. National Baseball Hall of Fame, Inc., Cooperstown, NY. Gabby Street file.
30. Hayes.
31. Gabby Street, “It’s Still Baseball,” American Legion Monthly no. 70, April 1932, n.p.
32. Ibid.
33. Minneapolis Spokesman. June 5, 1936.
34. Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell’s interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.
35. Minnesota Spokesman, June 5, 1936.
36. James M. Gould, “The Old Sarge Returns,” n.p., February 1938. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY. Gabby Street file.
37. Gai Ingham Berlage, The Forgotten Women in Baseball History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), 169; Hayes; Bill Kruissink, “First Woman in Pro Baseball Remembers,” Alameda Journal, April 2, 1996.
38. Street, “It’s Still Baseball.”
39. “Old Sarge Inspects Saints’ Muster Roll,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, February 25, 1937.
40. George Minot, “Ball Stirs Old Memories of Street’s Famed Catch,” Washington Post, January 25, 1964.
41. J. G. Taylor Spink, “Looping the Loop,” Sporting News, August 20, 1947; L. H. Addington, “Gabby Street Is Called ‘Ball Player’s Man,’” Sporting News, November 7, 1929; Bob Considine, “Big Time for Old Times’ Gabby Street Tells of Monument Catch,” New York Daily Mirror, October 12, 1944; Earle Marchres, “Famous Catch,” Ford Times, March 1975.
42. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
43. Joe Williams, “Please, Kiddies, Mr. Street Could Catch, Too,” n.p., n.d. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY. Gabby Street file; J. G. Taylor Spink, “Looping the Loop” Sporting News, August 20, 1947.
44. Fred Lieb, Baseball as I Have Known It (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1977), 54.
45. Ibid.
46. Alan Gould, “Gabby Street: Ace of the Cards,” n.d., n.p. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY. Gabby Street file; Harry T. Brundridge, “Gabby Street, a Fighter All of His Life, Spurns Title of Miracle Man, but Career Shows He Deserves It,” Sporting News, October 2, 1930.
47. Tim Brady, “Almost Perfect Equality,” September 20, 2002. University of Minnesota Alumni Association. www.alumni.umn.edu/Almost_Perfect_Equality.html.
48. Nancy Vaillancourt interview with the author, June 16, 2008.
49. Jennifer Delton, Making Minnesota Liberal: Civil Rights and the Transformation of the Democratic Party (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 38.
50. “Lady Ball Player,” Ebony, July 1953, 52.
51. “Lady Ball Player”; Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.
52. Hayes; Chicago Defender, February 21, 1953.
53. James M. Gould, “The Old Sarge Returns,” n.p., February 1938. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY. Gabby Street file.
Chapter 3: Barnstorming with the Colored Giants
1. Gwendolyn Brooks, “A Song in the Front Yard,” Selected Poems (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 6.
2. Brittan Fias (Saint Paul Schools Student Placement Center for Student Data Management), e-mail to author, August 12, 2008; Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive; Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008; Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009; Robert L. Osgood, The History of Special Education: A Struggle for Equality in American Public Schools (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2007), 64–70.
3. “Girl Athlete,” Minneapolis Spokesman, June 25, 1937.
4. Doug Grow, “League of Her Own: Tomboy Stone Dead at Age 75,” Minneapolis–Saint Paul StarTribune, November 5, 1996.
5. Geraldine M. Williams, “Minnesota St. Paul,” Chicago Defender, December 18, 1937.
6. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.
7. John Cotton interview with the author, June 25, 2008; Kyle McNary, “Maceo Breedlove: Big Fish in a Small Pond,” Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota, Steven R. Hoffbeck, ed. (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2005), 114; Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009; Mark J. Moore, n.p.. n.d. Lester private archive.
8. Steven R. Hoffbeck, ed. Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005), 11–12, 58–83.
9. Leslie Heaphy e-mail to author, November 10, 2009.
10. Chicago Daily News, June 18, 1943, quoted at www.pitchblackbaseball.com/northdakotabaseball.
11. Ibid.
12. www.pitchblackbaseball.com/northdakotabaseball.
13. McNary, 112–119; Kyle McNary interview with the author, June 23, 2008; www.pitchblackbaseball.com/northdakotabaseball.
14. Sam Lacy, “First Woman in Pro Baseball,” Afro Magazine, 1953, n.p. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.
15. John Cotton interview with the
author, June 25, 2008.
16. Minneapolis Spokesman, July 31, 1937.
17. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
18. John Cotton interview with the author, June 23, 2008.
19. McNary, 114.
20. McNary, 113–115; John Cotton interview with the author, June 25, 2008.
21. Kyle McNary interview with the author, January 7, 2008; Doug Grow, “Rondo Kids Were Tough, but ‘Tomboy’ Toughest,” Minneapolis–Saint Paul StarTribune manuscript, January 3, 1991. Grow personal archive.
22. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.
23. Roger Nieboer interview with the author, November 19, 2007.
24. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
25. Geraldine M. Williams, “Minnesota St. Paul,” Chicago Defender, December 18, 1937.
26. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008; Baltimore Afro-American, July 17, 1954.
27. Evelyn Fairbanks, Days of Rondo (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1990), 39.
28. James Stafford Griffin, Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community (Minneapolis: Syren Book Company, 2005), 67–69; Roger Nieboer interview with the author, November 19, 2007.
29. Letter to author from Brittany Frias (Saint Paul Public Schools Placement Center for Student Data Management), August 12, 2008.
30. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
31. “Tom Boy Stone Kicked in Face by William Gillespie,” Minneapolis Spokesman, March 19, 1943.
32. Merlene Davis, “Female Baseball Player Got the Ball Rolling,” Lexington Herald-Leader, November 28, 1996.
33. Davis.
Chapter 4: Golden Gate
1. Lowell Fulson, lyrics to “San Francisco Blues,” 1947, “Lowell Fulson 1946-1953,” JSP Recordings, 2004.
2. John Dos Passos, “San Francisco Looks Back: The City in Wartime,” Harper’s, May 1944.
3. Minneapolis Spokesman, June 4, 1943.
4. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.
5. Rosie the Riveter World War II American Homefront Oral History Project: An Oral History with Willie Mae Cotright Conducted by Judith Dunning, 2002. Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2007.
6. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
7. Maria Bartlow-Reed interviews with the author, March 10, 2008, and December 14, 2008; Diana DuBay, “From St. Paul Playgrounds to Big Leagues, Stone Always Loved Baseball,” Minnesota Women’s Press, February 13–16, 1988, 5; Miki Turner, “And Still She Rose,” Oakland Tribune, August 28, 1992.
8. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.
9. Ibid.
10. Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009; Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.
11. www.nps.gov/historynr/travel/wwIIbayarea; Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco; San Francisco News, January 15, 1954; San Francisco News, August 8, 1941.
12. Katherine Archibald, Wartime Shipyard: A Study in Social Disunity (San Francisco: University of California Press, 1947), 26, 36–39, 78.
13. www.sfmuseum.org/sunreporter/fleming.
14. Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.
15. Elizabeth Pepin and Lewis Watts, Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006), 38.
16. Maya Angelou, Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (New York: Random House, 1976), 3.
17. Pepin and Watts, 78.
18. Ibid., 38.
19. Jas Obrecht, Rockin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists (San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 2000), 30.
20. Frank Jackson interview with the author, June 22, 2008.
21. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.
22. Rosie the Riveter World War II American Homefront Oral History Project: An Oral History with Betty Reid Soskin conducted by Nadine Wilmot, 2002. Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2007; Betty Reid Soskin e-mail with author, November 28, 2008.
23. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008; “Oral History of Katherine Stewart Flippin,” Black Women Oral History Project vol. 4, edited by Ruth Edmonds Hill and Patricia Miller King (Westport: CT: Meckler Publishing, 1991), 87. Copyright Radcliffe College.
24. Douglas Henry Daniels, Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), 78; Carol Brookman interview with the author, December 2, 2008; Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008; Oral history with Aurelious P. Alberga conducted by Albert S. Broussard, December 7, 1976, “Afro-Americans in San Francisco Prior to World War II,” the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco African-American Historical and Cultural Society, 36.
25. Mike Weaver, “Female Player Was a Minority of One,” San Jose Mercury News, August 11, 1991
26. Jas Obrecht, editor. Rockin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 2000, 29.
27. Obrecht, 30.
28. Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.
29. Daniels, 177.
30. Toni Stone interview with Miki Turner, August 1992. Tuner interview notes shared with author July 10, 2009.
31. Jim Quinlan interview with the author, December 8, 2008.
32. Bob Hayes, “To This Ms., Diamond Is Made of Dirt,” San Francisco Examiner; David Hawley, “Toni Stone, a Baseball ‘Tomboy,’” Saint Paul Pioneer Press, November 5, 1996; Merlene Davis, Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader, November 28, 1996.
33. Jim Quinlan interview with the author, December 8, 2008.
34. Jim Brown interview with the author, August 16, 2008.
35. Barbara Gregorich, Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1993), 171; Toni Stone interview with Larry Lester, January 3, 1991. Lester private archive.
36. San Mateo Times, August 9, 1947; San Mateo Times, August 19, 1947; Dave Lewis, “Once Over Lightly,” Long Beach Independent, May 14, 1947; Oakland Tribune, July 14, 1947; San Mateo Times, June 21, 1948.
37. Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.
38. William G. Swank and James D. Smith III, “This Was Paradise: Voices of the Pacific Coast League Padres: 1936–1958,” Journal of San Diego History Winter 1995, vol. 41, no. 1. Interview with Pete Coscarart.
39. Michael Seidel, Ted Williams: A Baseball Life (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 12–15.
40. Kevin Nelson, The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball (Berkeley: California Historical Society Press, 2004), 218.
41. Fresno Bee, May 13, 1946.
42. Letter from Abe Saperstein to Byron “Speed” Reilly, June 13, 1946. Eddie Harris Manuscript Collection, African American Museum and Library Oakland, CA.
43. Seattle Daily Times, June 3, 1946.
44. Sammy J. Miller and Dick Clark, Black Baseball in Detroit (Mt. Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000), 264.
45. Herald Gordon interview with the author, July 18, 2008.
46. Brent Kelley, I Will Never Forget: Interviews with 39 Former Negro League Players (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2003), 60–61.
47. Kelley, 61.
48. Joseph A. Reaves, Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 106–107.
49. Balt
imore Afro-American. July 17, 1954.
50. Ibid.; Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.
51. Jonathan Eig, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 18.