Curveball (36 page)

Ann Romberger encouraged me to return to an earlier passion and write about baseball again. We have attended Boston Red Sox games for three decades—through all the “almost” seasons and those two recent World Series wins. We both know how the sport can exhilarate and break your heart. In a way, Ann has been like the trusted coach Toni Stone always hoped to find—someone who stood on first and cheered you home. Her support has been incalculable. As usual, Yogi Berra may have stumbled upon the best way to put it—how to measure what defies quantifying. “You give 100 percent in the first half of the game,” Yogi said, “and if that isn’t enough in the second half, you give what’s left.”

Leverett, Massachusetts
August 17, 2009

1
. “He rubbed shoulders with greats of the game.” [Norfolk]
Virginian-Pilot
, August 19, 1991.

2
. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

3
.
Chicago Defender
, May 16, 1953.

4
.
Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports
(HBO documentary, Ross Greenberg, executive producer), 1999.

5
. Ernie Banks interview with the author, September 4, 2009.

6
. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Cooperstown, NY.

7
. My thanks to Kyle McNary, who generously shared the recording of his conversation with Toni Stone. McNary’s telephone interview with Stone took place in September 1993. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations in the prologue are taken from this interview. McNary is such an ardent scholar of Negro League baseball that he named his daughter Clare Double Duty Radcliffe McNary. Damon Runyon nicknamed Theodore Roosevelt Radcliffe “Double Duty” after Radcliffe played in two successive Negro Leagues World Series games—first as a catcher, then as a pitcher.

8
. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, June 6, 2006.

9
. Evelyn Fairbanks,
Days of Rondo
(Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990), 111.

10
.
Minneapolis Spokesman
, June 4, 1943.

11
. Ibid., August 30, 1937.

12
. McNary recounting his interviews with former Negro League players; Toni Stone interview with McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

1
. Countee Cullen, “Two Who Crossed a Line,”
Color
(New York: Harper & Brothers Company, 1925), 16.

2
. Mike Weaver, “Female Player Was a Minority of One,”
San Jose Mercury News
, August 11, 1991.

3
. Bob Hayes, “To This Ms., Diamond Is Made of Dirt,”
San Francisco Examiner
, May 4, 1976.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.

6
. Melvin Carter Sr. interview with the author, May 20, 2008.

7
. Toni Stone interview with Bill Krussink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.

8
. Patti Schuck interview with the author, May 14, 2008.

9
. Mark J. Moore, “Negro League First Female Player Recalls Life, Career in Pro Baseball,” n.p., n.d. Lester private archive; Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.

10
. Hayes; Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

11
. Melvin Carter Sr. interview with the author, May 20, 2008.

12
. Toni Stone interview with Miki Turner, August 1992. Turner interview notes shared with author July 10, 2009; Toni Stone interview with Jean Hastings Ardell, April 1992. Ardell interview notes shared with author June 22, 2009.

13
. Stew Thornley, “Pay Days” (
Ramsay County History
vol. 23, no. 1, 1988), 22.

14
. Brendan Henehan interview with the author, November 19, 2007.

15
. E-mail from Lakeishia S. Richardson, June 10, 2008. I am indebted to Richardson for her research at Tuskegee in locating Boykin Stone among students listed in the
Tuskegee Institute Bulletin
for 1908–1909.

16
. Melvin Carter Sr. interview with the author, May 20, 2008.

17
. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.

18
. Evelyn Fairbanks,
Days of Rondo
(Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1990), 1.

19
. Steven Hoffbeck, ed.,
Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota
(Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2005), 55.

20
. Fairbanks, 42; H. Janabelle Taylor Murphy interview with the author, November 18, 2007.

21
.
Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community as Told to Kateleen Jill Hope Cavett of Hand in Hand Productions
(Minneapolis: Syren Book Company, 2005), 87.

22
.
Remembering Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence
(Saint Paul: Remembering Rondo Committee, 1995), 13.

23
. Mark J. Moore, “Negro League First Female Player Recalls Life, Career in Pro Baseball,” n.p. n.d. Lester private archive.

24
. Jimmy Griffin with Kwame J. C. McDonald,
Jimmy Griffin, A Son of Rondo: A Memoir (
Saint Paul: Ramsay County Historical Society, 2001), 20.

25
. Quincy Mills interview with the author, June 4, 2008. I am indebted to Professor Mills of Vassar College for his help in understanding the culture of “color-line barbers” in the 1930s.

26
. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, December 14, 2008.

27
.
Remembering Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence (
Saint Paul: Remembering Rondo Committee, 1995), 6.

28
. David Taylor,
African Americans in Saint Paul
(Saint Paul, Minnesota, Historical Society Press, 2002), 42.

29
. James Griffin. Voices of Minnesota Radio Series (Minnesota Historical Society, Minneapolis, MN).

30
. Fairbanks, 73.

31
. Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008.

32
. Fairbanks, 85.

33
. “The Duluth Tragedy,” [Mankato, Minnesota]
Daily Free Press
, June 7, 1920.

34
. Terry Kolb, “St. Peter Claver Member Recounts Struggles with Racism,”
The Catholic Spirit
.
http://extra.thecatholicspirit.com/heritage/st-peter-claver-member-recounts.html
.

35
. Fairbanks, 150.

36
. Ibid., 150–160.

37
. Ibid., 108. The rink was integrated by 1940.

38
.
Voices of Rondo
, 21.

39
. Fairbanks, 160.

40
. Ibid., 31, 41, 75.

41
. Toni Stone interview with Miki Turner, August 1992. Turner interview notes shared with author July 10, 2009.

42
. H. Janabelle Murphy Taylor interview with the author, November 18, 2007.

43
.
Voices of Rondo
, 53.

44
. Ibid., 51.

45
. Doug Grow, “Rondo Kids Were Tough, but ‘Tomboy’ Toughest,” Minneapolis–Saint Paul
StarTribune
, January 3, 1991 (manuscript version from Grow personal archive).

46
. Dorothy Snell Curtis,
Changing Edges
(1990), quoted in Minnesota Historical Society, “In Their Own Words: Minnesota’s Greatest Generation” exhibit.

47
. Hayes.

48
. Norman Rollins interview with the author, May 21, 2008. Rollins said Rondo nicknames stuck so well that seventy years after their childhood people could not remember what a friend’s legal name was. When Lester Howell died, Rollins said, no one knew who “Lester” was. Howell was forever “Rock Bottom” to all his childhood friends.

49
. Hayes; Toni Stone interview with Bill Kruissink, March 27, 1996. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., Cooperstown, NY.

50
. Fairbanks, 98–99.

51
. Hayes; Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

52
. Toni Stone interview with Kyle McNary, September 1993. McNary private archive.

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.