Every account of Toni Stone’s 1953 season listed her age as 22. She was 32, according to the Society for American Baseball Research, which says the billing was an attempt to enhance her status as a drawing card. What was real was her spot at second base for the Indianapolis Clowns, and a St. Paul kid who grew up playing ball with the neighborhood boys had earned it.
Born Marcenia Lyle Stone, she grew up in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood and earned the nickname “Tomboy,” per the Minnesota Historical Society. She moved to California in 1946 and played semipro ball, including with the San Francisco Sea Lions and the New Orleans Creoles, according to SABR.
In 1953, she signed with the Clowns of the Negro American League and took over second base after Hank Aaron left, per MLB.com. MLB calls her the first woman to play professional baseball regularly in a major men’s league. Clowns owner Syd Pollock encouraged her to wear a skirt on the field. She refused, per the Library of Congress.
The clubhouse took some convincing. “Once you let the guys know that there isn’t going to be any monkey business, they soon give you their respect,” Stone said, per SABR. A 1953 item in the Jackson Advocate quoted her saying she did not expect the boys to “let up” on her because she was a woman, according to the Library of Congress.
The Clowns played 175 games in 1953, and Stone appeared in about 50 of them, per SABR. At one point she was hitting .364, fourth in the league, right behind Ernie Banks, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. SABR estimates her average over two seasons at .243, because complete statistics are not available.
Her favorite moment was a hit off Satchel Paige, which she called “the happiest moment in my life,” according to the Negro League Baseball Players Association. Historians have had a hard time pinning that game down. SABR notes that on Easter 1953, the date often given for an exhibition in Omaha, Paige’s St. Louis Browns were in Texas.
After the season, her contract was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs, and she retired after 1954, per SABR. She was not alone for long. Connie Morgan took her spot in the Indianapolis infield, and pitcher Mamie “Peanut” Johnson joined the Clowns, making three women in the league.
St. Paul declared March 6, 1990, “Toni Stone Day,” and a ballpark in the city carries her name. She died Nov. 2, 1996, at 75. The idea of a gifted woman looking for a chance on the diamond has since made it to TV in “A League of Their Own,” where Chanté Adams plays a gifted Black ballplayer whom no team will give a chance.
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