Toni Stone Biography
Toni Stone was born Marcenia Lyle Stone on July 17, 1921 in Bluefield, West Virginia. When she was 10 years
old her family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. Her parents, Willa and Boykin Stone, raised Marcenia in St. Paul’s
developing African American neighborhood – the Rondo neighborhood (which was eventually displaced by the
construction of I-94 in the 1960s). Stone grew up playing baseball with the neighborhood boys and was the first
girl to hold a spot on the St. Peter Claver boys baseball team. She was a natural athlete and achieved success
lettering in track, high jump and diamondball (a form of softball) for Roosevelt High School.
She would get her first break as a professional baseball player when she joined the Twin City Colored Giants at
the age of 16. She proved herself to be a strong athlete and valuable member of the independent barnstorming
team. Toni travelled around the Midwest and Canada with the Colored Giants until she decided to join her
sister, Bunny, in San Francisco following the onset of World War II.
Bunny and her husband had moved to California to enlist in the armed forces. Toni went out to join them with
no money, no job and no address of where to find her sister. She would eventually find work as a salad maker, a
welder and a truck driver and find a new home in the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco, known as the
“Harlem of the West.” While living there she would meet her future husband, Aurelious Pescia Alberga. He
encouraged her to join the American Legion Junior League baseball team, which had previously been limited to
high school age boys. Stone, then 26, claimed to be 16 years old to secured a spot on the team (She would
continue to claim being 10 years younger for her entire career). She would also at this time adopt the alias “Toni
Stone.” She would go on to play a short stint with the San Francisco Sea Lions of the West Coast Negro League,
before joining the Negro Leagues minor league team, the New Orleans Creoles in 1949.
In 1953 Toni Stone would make history when she joined the Negro Major League Team, the Indianapolis Clowns.
She would fill the 2nd base position vacated by Hank Aaron, when he joined the Milwaukee Braves. Stone would
become the first woman to play for the Negro Major Leagues and one of the first woman to ever play Major
League baseball on a men’s professional team. She was met with much opposition from her opponents, critics
and fellow teammates, but continued on, despite constant adversity. She proved herself to be a valuable
member of the league and batted a lifetime average of .243 and at one point had the 4th highest batting average
in the league. She would go on to play one season with the Indianapolis Clowns (’53) and one season with the
Kansas City Monarchs (’54) before retiring and returning to Oakland, CA to take care of her ailing husband. She
continued to coach and play semi-pro ball well into her 60s.
Although many people are not familiar with the contributions made by Toni Stone, she did receive much
overdue recognition late in her life. Although she has not been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown, she is recognized in the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City. MO. Also, the City of St. Paul, MN
declared March 6th as “Toni Stone Day” in 1990. Stone would be inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame
in 1993 and “Toni Stone Field” (in St. Paul) was dedicated in 1996.
Toni Stone died on November 2, 1996 of heart failure in Alameda, CA. Her incredible career and struggles has
left behind a legacy for female baseball players that has yet to be rivaled.
Time Period Overview – Toni Stone
Toni Stone was born in in 1921 in West Virginia at a time when many African-Americans were moving from
Southern States to northern industrial cities. This period from 1910 to 1930 was known as the Great Migration.
1.5 million African-Americans moved from the south to cities like St. Paul, Chicago, Detroit and New York City in
search of better jobs and less racial discrimination and segregation. Stone’s parents found an opportunity in St.
Paul’s Rondo neighborhood to become business owners and influential members of the community.
However, Stone and her family would feel the financial burdens of the entire nation following the stock market
crash of 1929. The Crash of 1929 would hurl the United States into an economic depression that would last for
more than a decade. The financial struggles could be felt by most Americans, both rich and poor, in cities and in
rural communities. Stone would eventually drop out of high school at the age of 16 in order to earn money
playing for the Twin City Colored Giants barnstorming team.
Stone had grown up idolizing the prominent players of a new brand of baseball that was founded in 1920. The
Negro National League was founded by the infamous African-American pitcher, Andrew “Rube” Foster. The
1920s & 30s represented the Golden Age of Negro Leagues Baseball, giving rise to the careers of baseball greats
like Satchel Paige, James “Cool Papa” Bell and Josh Gibson. Baseball, as a whole, had caught the attention of the
American people with the era of the Great Home-Run Hitters such as “Babe” Ruth, Rogers Hornsby and Lou
Gehrig.
However, on December 7, 1941 attention switched from baseball to a much bigger world event. The bombing of
Pearl Harbor and America’s entrance into World War II. In 1943, Toni Stone would leave her home in St. Paul to
join her sister, Bunny and her husband who had both enlist in the military, in San Francisco, CA. Stone moved to
California at a good time for African-Americans and women looking for work. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
Executive Order 8802 (also known as the Fair Employment Act) ended discriminatory hiring practices for
national war industries. Stone would join thousands of women and African-Americans vying for war jobs in the
San Francisco Shipyards.
Stone would also find housing in what was known as the “Harlem of the West,” the Fillmore District of San
Francisco. The Fillmore District had once been a vibrant community, primarily inhabited by Japanese
immigrants. During the 1910s-1930s it had been known as Japantown. But in 1942, President Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9906 which relocated people of Japanese descent to internment camps. This would leave the
streets of Japantown virtually abandoned. Newly arriving African-Americans would begin moving into the
neighborhood. The Fillmore District would soon become the center of African-American music and culture in
San Francisco, bringing major musical icons to the neighborhood, including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and
Billie Holiday. San Francisco would become Toni’s homebase and would be the site of her first steps into Negro
League professional baseball.
However, an event in 1947 would open the door for African-American males into integrated baseball, but spell
the demise of the Negro Leagues. On April 14, 1947 Jackie Robinson breaks the nearly 60 year color line in Major
League baseball when he steps out onto the field as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Since 1888, there had
been an unspoken rule in baseball, known as the “Gentleman’s Agreement” that banned African-Americans
form playing in the Majors. This had been upheld by long-time baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain
Landis. After Landis’s death in 1944, new commissioner Albert “Happy” Chandler discontinued the
“Gentleman’s Agreement” and Jackie Robinson was signed in 1946. Many other prominent Negro Leagues
players would join the Majors after Robinson’s integration, including names like Larry Doby, Roy Campanella,
Satchel Paige and Hank Aaron. As attention switched to the integrated Majors, African-American fans began to
lose interest in the Negro Leagues. Negro League baseball would start a slow decline following Robinsons’
breaking of the color barrier in Major League baseball.
The Negro Leagues would continue through the 1950s, but with greatly diminished attendance and smaller
pools to draw talent from. This would open the doors for players like Toni stone, however, with an increased
need for “Gate Draws” like a female player. The remaining Negro Leagues players would have to endure longer
playing seasons in order to remain financially viable. Many games would be played in the still segregated
Southern states. Players would meet with the ongoing practice of “Jim Crow” segregation laws and severe racial
discrimination and bigotry. Many teams struggled to find places to eat and lodge while on the road. But the
struggles of players like Toni Stone and other Negro Leagues players helped pave the way for future generations
of African-American and female athletes.