Interesting and Fun Facts about American Baseball Player Toni Stone

Google animated Doodle honors American baseball player Marcenia “Toni” Stone, the first woman to ever play professional baseball as a regular on a big-league team, on February 9, 2022.

Here is a look at the life and work of Toni Stone.

Personal

Birth name: Marcenia Lyle Stone
Birthdate: July 17, 1921
Birthplace: Bluefield, West Virginia
Died on: November 2, 1996 (aged 75)
Death place: Alameda, California
Known For: Baseball Player

35 Interesting Facts about Toni Stone

1. Became the first female to play major league baseball, joining the San Francisco Sea Lions in the Negro Leagues in 1949. She recorded two RBIs in her first professional at-bat.
2. Toni Stone was the first of three women to play professional baseball full-time for the Indianapolis Clowns, in the already all-male Negro leagues. This additionally made her the first woman to play as a regular on an American big-league professional baseball team.
3. Toni Stone well known for her Tomboy looks was among the first three women to join the Negro league. Many individuals incorporated her husband attempted to persuade her to drop her desire of playing baseball professionally.
4. Toni Stone was the first woman to play professionally in a male baseball league. Other than playing baseball Stones worked as a nurse.
5. She appreciated playing baseball with boys in the neighborhood, and procured the nickname “Tomboy.” She eventually adopted the name Toni Stone since she had been designated “Tomboy” as a girl and “Toni” seemed like “Tomboy.”
6. Toni Stone’s love for the game started when she was a child. At age 10 she played in a league sponsored by a cereal organization. At age 15 she started playing with the St. Paul Giants, a men’s semiprofessional team.
7. After graduating from secondary school, Toni Stone moved to California to live with her sister. She soon started playing centre field for the American Legion team.
8. At 16, she had the option to transform baseball into a source of income, playing for the Twin City Colored Giants, another all-male team, at a rate of about $2 per game.
9. Afterward, in 1943, she Stone moved to San Francisco, where she took on the name “Toni.” That year, Toni Stone started playing for an American Legion Baseball team, but by lying about her age, the teams were simply open to youngsters.
10. Instead, in 1949, Toni Stone battled to join the San Francisco Sea Lions, a professional baseball team that was part of the short-lived West Coast Negro Baseball Association. Her time there was short-lived, as she observed that she was being paid less than her colleagues.
11. From that point, she moved to the San Francisco Sea Lions, where her batting average was .280. Stone then, at that point, protected a position with the Negro League All-Star team.
12. In 1949, Toni Stone started playing second base for the minor league New Orleans Creoles, and in 1953 she joined the Indianapolis Clowns, playing a similar position.
13. She played with the team in San Francisco from 1943 to 1945. Stone talked her way onto the roster of the San Francisco Sea Lions by spring of 1949.
14. Toni Stone soon became discontented with the owner of the Sea Lions after she found she was paid less than her male colleagues. Stone joined the New Orleans Creoles (1949-1952).
15. From the finish of the 1949 season through 1952, Stone played with a semi-pro team, the New Orleans Creoles, whose proprietor saw her ability and expected when his team played against the Sea Lions.
16. With the Creoles, Toni Stone observed the national recognition that she was apparently searching for, permitting her to show that women could play baseball similarly as well as men and that Black players were similarly just about as great as every other person.
17. For the 1953 season, Stone was signed by Syd Pollock, owner of the Indianapolis Clowns, to play second base, the position Hank Aaron had played for the team before joining the Milwaukee Braves (presently the Atlanta Braves).
18. In 1953, Toni Stone joined the Indianapolis Clowns to play second base, supplanting acclaimed player Hank Aaron in the lineup. As indicated by details from that year, Stone had a batting average of .364, positioning her fourth highest in the league.
19. The following season, 1954, was Toni Stone’s last, during which she played for the Kansas City Monarchs, however, she spent most of that season on the bench.
20. In 1953, Toni Stone became the first woman to play as a regular on a big-league professional baseball team, the Negro American League’s Indianapolis Clowns, yet she additionally played one of the most troublesome positions, second base.
21. Toni Stone was the first female player in the Negro Leagues, and she was not met with open arms.
22. Stone’s agreement was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs before the 1954 season, and she retired after the season due to the absence of playing time.
23. Notwithstanding her retirement from the Negro Leagues, Stone kept on playing sandlot and pickup games with California American Legion teams until she was 62.
24. Every off-season, Toni Stone got back to Oakland. She eventually married a man forty years older, Aurelious Alberga, a first lieutenant in the Officer Reserves Corps.
25. After the 1954 season, Toni Stone moved to Oakland, California, to work as a nurse and care for her sick husband.
26. Stone then, at that point, worked as a nurse, especially caring for her husband, Aurelious Alberga (some 40 years her senior), until he died in 1987.
27. In 1990, Toni Stone was included in two exhibits at the Baseball Hall of Fame, one on “Women in Baseball” and one more on “Negro League Baseball”.
28. These achievements might make her “probably the best player you have never known about”, as per the Negro League Baseball Players Association.
29. In 1993, Toni Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
30. In 1985, she was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. After five years, in 1990, Stone was honored on TV’s This Week In Baseball. St. Paul, Minnesota, her hometown, declared March 6, 1990, as ‘Toni Stone Day’.
31. Toni Stone died on November 2, 1996, of heart failure at a nursing home in Alameda, California. She was 75 years of age.
32. A baseball player from her early childhood, Toni Stone proceeded to play for the San Francisco Sea Lions, The New Orleans Creoles, the Indianapolis Clowns, and the Kansas City Monarchs before retiring from baseball in 1954.
33. In 1990, Toni Stone’s hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota pronounced March 6 “Toni Stone Day”. Saint Paul likewise has a field named after Toni Stone situated at the Dunning Baseball Complex.
34. In 2020, the Society for American Baseball Research designated Toni Stone for the Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award.
35. On February 9, 2022, Google celebrated Toni Stone’s heritage and accomplishments by making her the Google Doodle on their landing page.

Toni Stone Google Doodle

The animated Google Doodle celebrating Toni Stone was appointed by Google from San Francisco-based guest artist Monique Wray. In it, we see Stone in her uniform for the Indianapolis Clowns, bouncing up to get a ball just before a rival team’s player contacts her base. In true Google Doodle design, the scoreboard in the background spells out “Google.”