Curveball by Martha Ackmann Page A

of American Baseball Research, and a Collaborative Gender and Women’s Studies Research Grant awarded to Scripps College by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
    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
     

Notes
     

Prologue
     
    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.
     

Chapter 2: Miracle in Saint Paul
     
    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