Constance Enola Morgan (October 17, 1935 – October 14, 1996) was the third woman to play professional baseball in the
Negro league
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relativel ...
.
Career
A native of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Morgan graduated
John Bartram High School in 1953 and attended
William Penn Business Institute.
She joined the
Indianapolis Clowns
The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Tracing their origins back to the 1930s, the Clowns were the last of the Negro league teams to disband, continuing to play exhibition games into the 1980s. Th ...
of the
Negro American League
The Negro American League was one of the several Negro leagues created during the time organized American baseball was segregated. The league was established in 1937, and disbanded after its 1962 season.
Negro American League franchises
:''An ...
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 a private foundation. It serves as the central collection and gathering space for the history of baseball in the United S ...
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
Toni Stone (July 17, 1921 – November 2, 1996), born as Marcenia Lyle Stone, was an American female professional baseball player who played in predominantly male leagues. In 1953, she became the first woman to play as a regular on an American m ...
, who had been the first woman to compete in the league, and who had been traded to the
Kansas City Monarchs
The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri, and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 193 ...
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 Baron ...
."
Making her first appearance in her native Philadelphia in July, the Clowns took both games of a doubleheader from the Monarchs, one of the preeminent teams in the league.
Morgan played with the Clowns through 1955. Before her tenure with the Indianapolis, she played catcher for five seasons with the North Philadelphia Honey Drippers, an all-women baseball team, batting .338 in that time.
Post-baseball life
At the end of the Clowns' championship season, she "switched from bats to books as she resumed her studies" in
accounting
Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...
at
William Penn Business Institute, with the goal of becoming a "top-flight worker in a business office".
She completed her program in 1955 and eventually worked for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together r ...
) until her retirement in 1974.
1995 saw her inducted into the
, and she died in Philadelphia 14 October 1996, 3 days short of her 61st birthday.
See also
*
Women in baseball
Women have a long history in American baseball and many women's teams have existed over the years. Baseball was played at women's colleges in New York and New England as early as the mid-nineteenth century;Ring (2009), 33. teams were formed at ...
References
External links
Negro League Baseball Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Connie
1935 births
1996 deaths
American women baseball players
Indianapolis Clowns players
20th-century American sportswomen
20th-century African-American sportswomen
John Bartram High School alumni
Women players in men's baseball