Constance Enola Morgan (October 17, 1935 – October 14, 1996) was the third woman to play professional baseball in the
Negro league.
Career
A native of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Morgan graduated
John Bartram High School in 1953 and attended
William Penn Business Institute
William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...
.
She joined the
Indianapolis Clowns of the
Negro American League in 1954, playing second base under
Baseball Hall of Fame
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...
skipper
Oscar Charleston. She was signed "to a contract estimated at $10,000 per season" by Clowns owner
Syd Pollock
Sydney S. Pollock (March 20, 1901 - November 22, 1968) was an American sports executive in Negro league baseball. Pollock worked as a booking agent for several clubs starting in the late 1910s before becoming an executive with the Havana Red Sox/ ...
at the same time as female pitcher
Mamie "Peanut" Johnson.
She replaced
Toni Stone, who had been the first woman to compete in the league, and who had been traded to the
Kansas City Monarchs prior to the season.
Described as standing tall and weighing 140 pounds (64 kilos), she was "slated to get the regular female assignment in the starting lineup."
On opening day, 23 May 1954, "she went far to her right to make a sensational stop, flipped to shortstop Bill Holder and started a lightning doubleplay against the
Birmingham Barons
The Birmingham Barons are a Minor League Baseball team based in Birmingham, Alabama. The team, which plays in the Southern League, is the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox and plays at Regions Field in downtown Birmingham. The current