SHERO: Toni Stone (professional baseball player)
Toni Stone (Also known by her married name Marcenia Lyle Alberga) was the first of three women to play in the Negro baseball league. Born in July 1921, she graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota and later married Aurelious Alberga, a man forty years her elder and one of the many people who didn’t want…
her playing baseball. She had always been referred to as a “Tomboy” growing up and consequently received the nickname “Toni” because it sounded like “Tomboy.” Stone’s playing career began at the age of ten when she participated in a Catholic Midget League. By the age of fifteen, Toni played for the St. Paul Giants, a men’s semi-professional team. She soon began playing on Al Love’s American Legion championship team, and began her professional career with the San Francisco Sea Lions (1949), where she batted in two runs in her first time up. She later joined the Black Pelicans of New Orleans and eventually the New Orleans Creoles.
In 1953, Toni was signed to play second base for the Indianapolis Clowns, the position Hank Aaron had played two years earlier. She did this as part of a publicity stunt. The Clowns were compared to the Harlem Globetrotters of the basketball world, so having a woman on the team attracted more fans. During the fifty games that Stone played for the Clowns, she maintained a .243 batting average and one of her hits was off the legendary Satchel Paige. All of these accomplishments may make her “one of the best players you have never heard of,” according to the NLBPA website. Toni retired after the 1954 baseball season. She later moved to Oakland, California to work as a nurse and died in 1996 at the age of 75.
Tags: Baseball, Negro league, Shero, Toni Stone, Woman
