Good looking out Jae, for a BNz classic about the Brown’s Mill Lady Jackets from Atlanta, Georgia. This piece is perfect with the ever so growing popularity of women participation in tennis, soccer, basketball, volleyball and other sports, it’s good to know that baseball and softball are high on the list of popular female sports. BNz is honored to be able to particapate in spreading the word.

Semiprofessional baseball started in the United States in the 1860s and in 1869, the first fully professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amateur teams. By the following decade, American newspapers were referring to baseball as the “National Pastime,” excluding blacks of course.

During this pre-civil-rights-era African-American baseball players were barred from the major leagues based on their skin color. Due to the issue of racism and segregation African-Americans players fostered and formed a league of their own.

African-Americans wanted to create their own league because whites felt that blacks were inferior beings and incapable of playing on the same fields with them in day-to-day competition.

In 1920, Rube Foster founded the Negro National League in Kansas City. Foster’s league was later joined by the Eastern Colored League in 1923 and in 1937 the Negro American League was born.

Through the years, Negro leagues overcame enormous hardships, but conversely they still managed to flourish. The Negro League players’ endured, second-rate wages and playing conditions, despite their dominating skills and first class performance, blacks maintained a 60 percent winning record when matched up against all white major league opponents.

The play of the leagues was emerging in both the northern ghettos and in the southern states. The northern teams consisted of Pittsburgh Crawford’s, New York Black Yankees, Newark Eagles, and the Chicago American Giants, and the southern teams consisted of Birmingham Black Barons, Jacksonville Red Caps, and the Atlanta Black Crackers.

In the 1920s, a crowd of 5,000 spectators for a Sunday game was normal and by the 1930s, double headers would often generate in excess of 20,000 fans. Before the collapse of the segregated leagues, the Negro leagues were among the largest black businesses in the United States at the time.

As the league was maturing and growing as a relevant black America sport, women began to gain interest in the game as well but not from the dugout stand-point. In the peak of racism and sexism three players set out to make history as the first African-American female Negro League players.

In 1953, St. Paul, Minnesota native, Marcenia Lyle made history by becoming the first woman to play as a regular on a professional baseball team. Stone played with the Negro American League’s Indianapolis Clowns, in one of the most difficult positions, of second baseman, or second base-w-man in this case. Lyle adopted the name Toni Stone because she had been called “Tomboy” as a girl and “Toni” sounded like “Tomboy.”

Stone broke new ground in professional baseball in terms of female acceptance. Due to her persistence and commitment she led the way for two other female major league players Mamie “Peanut” Johnson and Constance “Connie” Enola Morgan.

Stone’s professional career was brief, but her affiliation with the gamed spanned over fifty years as she played with several semipro teams in St. Paul, MN, playing center field, for the San Francisco American Legion team; playing second base, for the San Francisco Sea Lions, in 1946, New Orleans Black Pelicans; and the New Orleans Creoles, 1949; Indianapolis Clowns, in 1953; Kansas City Monarchs, in 1954; and finally retiring from professional play in 1954.

Mamie “Peanut” Johnson played baseball with the Negro Leagues for three seasons in the 1950s as a member of the Indianapolis Clowns after attending New York University and North Carolina A&T University, for nursing. Johnson played baseball on St. Cyprian’s team in Washington recreational league, during the 1940s and 50s while sustaining as Indianapolis Clowns, pitcher, from 1953 to 1955.

It wasn’t until her professional baseball years that Johnson gained the nickname “Peanut,” a name given to her by Kansas City Monarchs’ third baseman Hank Baylis. In the process of striking out while Johnson was on the pitcher’s mound, Baylis angrily remarked that she was no bigger than a peanut, and the name peanut stuck every since.

Constance “Connie” Enola Morgan was the third woman to play professional baseball in the Negro league. Morgan replaced second-base player Toni Stone in 1954. Morgan played with the Indianapolis Clowns, for two years. Before going to the Clowns, Morgan played for five seasons with the North Philadelphia Honey Drippers, an all-girls baseball team, batting an unbelievable .368 in that time.

Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women’s most significant professions, until the vision of these three women!