December 09, 2002
Off The Reuters Wire
Comes this interesting story that reads like the outlines of a treatment for a screenplay -- at least as far as I'm concerned:
A fastball and a big dream carried Mamie "Peanut" Johnson on a fantastic journey from the fields of tiny Ridgeway, South Carolina, into United States sports history as the only woman to pitch for a men's professional baseball team.
Johnson joined the all-black Indianapolis Clowns in 1953 in the waning years of the historic Negro Leagues and for two years lived the dream she had pictured as a girl -- to be a professional baseball player.
Johnson, now 67, describes joining the Negro Leagues as a bit like winning a multi-million-dollar lottery since the all-male, predominately white Major Leagues were off-limits.
"I know I couldn't get there because, first, I was a woman, secondly, I was black," she told Reuters in an interview. "I had no chance of making that."
This is a great little story, and Johnson was part of an interesting time in baseball history -- the period when the flood of African-American players joining Major League Baseball in the wake of Jackie Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers was having a dual effect.
On the one hand, Robinson and players like Larry Doby, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe were integrating the majors and spear heading a major transformation in American social and cultural history.
On the other hand, the departure of these stars from the Negro Leagues spelled doom for teams like the Kansas City Monarchs, the Homestead Grays and Johnson's own Indianapolis Clowns. It's a great litttle piece, and one that you should spend some time reading.
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