Tony Stone is being celebrated Toni stone-Marcenia lyle
In honor of US Black History Month, San Francisco celebrates today's doodle, CA-based guest artist Monique Way athlete Marcenia "Tony" Stone, who overcame both gender and racial discrimination and became the first woman in professional baseball history. Regular in the men's major baseball league. On of this day in the 2021, Stone was a inducted into the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fames.
Marcenia Lyle Stone was born in 1921 in Bluefield, West Virginia in an era of pronounced racial segregation in American sports. In 1931, Stone moved to St. Paul's, Minnesota, where he developed his remarkable athleticism on the city's public playground and baseball field. At just 15 years old, the All-Men Semi-Pro Twin Cities Colored Giants broke the gender norm by bringing Stone to his list. In 1946, Stone went to bat with the San Francisco Sea Lions, which marked the beginning of his colorful professional career.
His exceptional batting average.280 earned him a place on the bench with the Negro League All-Star team as he continued to travel across the United States playing second base for the Minor League New Orleans Creoles. In 1953, Stone replaced future Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron as the second baseman of the Indianapolis Clowns, one of the league's most prestigious teams. Disappointed by the harshness of his debut season with the Clowns, Stone hit a single to Seychelles Page, widely regarded as one of the greatest calluses in Negro League history.
Stone played with legendary players throughout his career, such as Jackie Robinson, before retiring from professional baseball in 1954 as a legend. In 1990, March 6 was declared "Tony Stone Day" in his hometown of St. Paul, where future generations of baseball players practice in the light of Tony Stone Field. She was honored by various exhibitions at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and in 1993, was inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.
Here's to you, Tony Stone - thank you for showing the world what determination and irresistible love for the game can achieve!
Learn more about Tony Stone's life, achievements, and legacy, including a story from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum at Google Arts & Culture.
Special thanks to Tony Stone's family for their partnership. Below, her thes family reflects on their aunt's life, in legacy, and today's doodle:
Tony's gift was to play sports and he is celebrated today because he fought to play at a men's baseball club in Minnesota. Talking to the baseball coach, with the help of his priest, Tony enters the club. She was the first black woman to play in the Minnesota Boys League. He was active in tennis, skating, fishing and baseball. His love for baseball has won. He fought hard to play in a professional men's club. As a result, she became the first woman in the organized Negro League and quickly attracted attention for her baseball skills.
During Tony's career, he was subjected to humiliating prejudice from the audience and his peers. However, he never let her down. He stood next to the other players, went to the field and played the game. He used to say, “I am a woman, a black woman and I want to play and will play men's baseball. I don't even get the money these guys are making. But I do it because I love sports, and I do it to show other women that they can do it too. Remember, a woman has her dreams too. "
As children, we remember our aunt Tony and her husband Aurelius Alberg (Uncle Pesia) who loved and cared for her. Aunt Tony and Uncle Pesia always inspired us to go for it regardless of what we want to do in life and what people think. If this is something you really want to do, don't let anything get in your way. No matter how difficult the struggle, do it anyway and once it is done, you will see what you have achieved.
Aunt Tony loved to go to school and talk to the kids about her days at baseball. He always had a warm smile and reminded the school kids that they could do whatever they wanted if they tried. She will be happy to see the many opportunities that women, especially women of color, have gained today.
Maria A. Bertlow (niece) - Monica D. Franks (niece) - Odin Bertlow (niece) - Shawn Bertlow (niece)
Thanks to the Negro League Baseball Museum for supporting this doodle!
Courtesy of the Negro League Baseball Museum
Courtesy of Tony Stone Estate
Today's doodle is featured by San Francisco, CA-based guest artist Monique Way. Below, he shares his thoughts on creating this doodle:
Q. Why did this matter to you personally?
A: Tony was a trailblazer, a black woman doing things she can't expect, whether the world likes it or not, she talks to me.
Q. What was your first thought when contacting you about working on this doodle?
A: Excitement, working with the doodle team is always a good time and I really enjoy researching historical personalities with whom I am unfamiliar. I can tell from Tony's early photography that he was an interesting person.
Q. Did you take inspiration from something special for this doodle?
A. Tony himself. I spent a lot of time researching his life, career and baseball in the 1940s.
Q. What message do you expect people to get from your doodle?
A: Motivation to persevere. Tony has played with men, many of whom did not want him there. But I see almost every picture of her, she has a huge smile. He lived his life through adversity and did what he wanted to do.
Marcinia Lyle (Tony "Tomboy") became the first female professional baseball player in the Stone Negro Major League to break down both gender and ethnic barriers. In his career, he played with various men's teams before making history before joining the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro Major League team.
Tony Stone was born Marcinia Lyle Stone on July 17, 1921 in Bluefield, West Virginia. His family moved to St. Paul's when he was ten years old. Her parents, Boykin and Wila Maynard Stone, raised Marcinia in St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood.
Stone grew up playing baseball with neighborhood boys and earned the nickname "Tomboy" despite his parents' objections. Encouraged by her priesthood, she became the first girl in the Catholic Boys Baseball team at St. Peter's Clever Catholic Church in the Catholic Boys League.
Stone got his first real break when he joined the Twin City Colored Giants "Bornstorming" team at the age of sixteen. He traveled with the team to the Midwest and Canada before moving to California to stay with his sister after World War II began. He did strange things and settled in the Filmo neighborhood of San Francisco - sometimes known as "Harlem in the West". While there, Stone adopted a new professional name, "Tony Stone." She met her future husband, Aurelius Pesia Alberger, in a nightclub, and the couple married in 1950.
At Alberger's suggestion, Stone applied to play American Legion baseball. In order to exceed the legal age limit, for which players do not have to be more than seventeen years old, he shaved ten years from his actual age and maintained this ugliness throughout his entire career. He played a brief stint with the West Coast Negro League's San Francisco Sea Lions before joining the Negro Minor League team New Orleans Creoles in 1949.
Tony Stone made playing history in 1953 when he signed a seasonal contract with the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro American League. Hank Aaron was hired to fill the second-base position when he joined the Milwaukee Braves.
As one of the first women to play in the Negro Major League, Stone has been subjected to considerable harassment from opponents, critics and teammates. With the rise of integrated baseball, Negro League baseball began to decline. Although Stone's skills improved the team, its managers hired him as a ticket sales strategist. When the team owner suggested she wear a skirt, Stone refused. Serious about his sport, he insisted on wearing official uniforms.
In an effort to make the Indianapolis Clowns more marketable, the team's promoters created a biography for Stone. They claimed he had attended McLuster College when he had not actually graduated from high school. They reported his seasonal salary of $ 12,000 while, by his own admission, he was paid about $ 400 per month. There is some evidence that team management has increased its stats to keep people interested. Although it is widely acknowledged that he achieved a .364 batting average - the fourth highest in the league in 1953.
He has only spent one season with the Indianapolis Clowns. Her favorite memory with the team was a hit by legendary pitcher Seychelles Page while playing an exhibition. The following season, Stone Kings played City Kings. Feeling exploited, and dissatisfied with how little time he was allowed to spend on the field, he left and returned to California. He was a good coach in his sixties and played semi-professional ball.
Stone's contribution to baseball was forgotten for a lifetime. He is remembered at the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The city of St. Paul declared March 6, 1990, "Tony Stone Day" and later renamed a nearby ball park "Tony Stone Field". She was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 and entered the women's sport. Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1997, St. Paul's Great American History Theater recalled his story in a world premiere production, Tomboy Stone.
Tony Stone died on November 2, 1996 in Alameda, California.
