A league of her own: Kansas City play tells story of woman who made baseball history

Sixty-eight years after playing for the Monarchs — and 26 years after her death — Toni Stone will make a triumphant return to Kansas City.

“Toni Stone,” a dramatic comedy about the first woman to play professional men’s baseball, will be the 2022-23 season opener at Unicorn Theatre. The play, which will run Sept. 7-25, had its world premiere in 2018 in New York City.

The script by Lydia R. Diamond is based on Martha Ackmann’s 2017 book, “Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, First Woman to Play Professional Baseball.” Brad Shaw, a veteran of Kansas City Young Audiences and Coterie productions, will direct, with Jaeda LaVonne as the title character.

LaVonne is pretty much a natural to play Stone, even if she has no background in baseball or softball (she does play volleyball) and had never heard of Stone before getting an email from Unicorn’s producing artistic director, Cynthia Levin, offering her the role.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, yes,’” LaVonne said. “The first woman to play professional baseball, and she’s a woman of color. When I read through the script, I was like, ‘Why have I never heard of her before.’”

Like Stone, LaVonne spent much of her early childhood in Minnesota’s Twin Cities — Marcenia Lyle Stone grew up in St. Paul, and Jaeda LaVonne Smith was born in Minneapolis. And like Stone, she wound up in California. After retiring from baseball, Stone settled in the Oakland area, where she died in 1996 at 75. Lavonne’s family moved to Northern California, and she attended Azusa Pacific University.

She came to Kansas City three years ago to attend UMKC, where she earned a masters of fine arts in acting and directing. “Toni Stone” is her first role as a professional actor.

“It’s huge,” she said. “It’s like my first show that I’ve done, not as a student, but I’m actually being a paid, working actor. So, it’s kind of surreal in that way.”

Stone’s life was pretty surreal as well.

She played for the New Orleans Creoles in the Negro League minors before joining the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League in 1953. Stone, who was then 32, told Clowns owner Syd Pollock she was 22. To Pollock, signing the 5-foot-7 female infielder was largely an effort to attract fans after losing Hank Aaron to the Boston Braves.

But Stone hit a respectable .243 in 50 games while enduring harassment from fans, opponents and even teammates. She also was known for her solid defense at second base.

She was traded to the Monarchs in 1954, played one season and then retired, complaining that manager Buck O’Neil rarely put her in the lineup.

Unicorn’s play focuses on her days with the Clowns and her relationship with and marriage to Aurelious “A.P.” Alberga, who was more than 35 years older than Stone and lived to be 103.

“We get to see her being on this team with all these men,” LaVonne said. “We also see her fall in love, which surprises her.”

LaVonne said one of the most difficult aspects of her role was learning the nuances of batting averages, earned run averages, RBIs and the like.

“I’ve had to do a lot of research about baseball stats,” she said. “She was known for being like an encyclopedia, knowing baseball stats. She could tell you any stat of any player.”

Stone has been honored alongside many of those baseball greats, including a tribute at the Negro Leagues Baseball Hall of Fame in Kansas City. She also was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 (alongside gymnast Mary Lou Retton and swimmer Mary T. Meagher).

At the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, she joined other former Negro Leagues players for a banquet in 1991, where she was the only woman in attendance.

Two other women, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson and Connie Morgan, eventually played in the Negro Leagues, which were struggling for survival by the 1950s.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which formed in 1943 to fill the gap when male players went to war, was not an option for Stone, Johnson or Morgan. As in the major leagues, Black players were not welcome. The women’s league was the subject of the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own” and the current Amazon Prime series by the same name, which features a Black pitcher whose mother is named Toni.

The All-American Girls played baseball in skirts; Stone insisted on wearing the same uniform as the male players while competing against and with them..

Stone’s strong voice is heard throughout “Toni Stone,” with LaVonne filling the roles of main character and primary narrator. She said she speaks for nearly the entire two hours of the play.

“You’re being taken on a journey through the life of this character, through her mind,” she said. “So, it’s moving around quickly.”

That makes the role all the more challenging for a first-time professional actor.

“Oh, I’m nervous,” LaVonne said. “I think I was nervous Day 1, when I read through the script for the first rehearsal. It’s a lot to carry.”

The wisdom of Toni Stone

Stone has been called the female Jackie Robinson, but she also exhibited a bit of the wit and wisdom of Satchel Paige.

▪ On her childhood, when she went by the nickname “Tomboy”: “I was always a tomboy. I had to see what was over there on the other side of the fence.”

▪ “When I found out I could throw a baseball, that was it. I knew then what I wanted to do.”

▪ “A woman has her dreams, too. When you finish high school, they tell a boy to go out and see the world. What do they tell a girl? They tell her to go next door and marry the boy that their families picked for her. It wasn’t right. A woman can do many things.”

▪ On getting a hit off the legendary Paige during an exhibition game: “He threw that fastball, and I didn’t go nowhere, just stood up there, and hit it across second base. … I laughed like hell, and he was laughing, too.”

▪ “I was a menace to society. A girl kicking her legs up playing sports. I loved my trousers, my jeans. I love cars. Most of all, I loved to ride horses with no saddles. I wasn’t classified. People weren’t ready for me.”

‘Toni Stone’

“Toni Stone” will run Sept. 7-25 at the Unicorn Theatre, 3828 Main St. See unicorntheatre.org or call 816-531-PLAY (7529).