As We Mark the Anniversary of Title IX, I Regret I Never Met Toni Stone—The First Black Woman To Play Professional Baseball

As we mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX, landmark legislation that enabled girls and women to participate fully in interscholastic sports, I regret that I never met Toni Stone.

Unfamiliar with the name? I’m not surprised. Instead, my editors directed me to write articles about a white, San Francisco 49ers football player whose injuries they always deemed headline news. In a rarity for a 1980s Black woman reporter, I once interviewed, at home plate, then-Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. In hindsight, I would have gladly traded the experience for a chat with Toni Stone.

Women’s Soccer, a $1 Million Donation and a Warehouse Job Claim the Podium

Title Nine, a women’s sport apparel company in California, recently donated $1 million to the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in an effort to narrow the wage gap.

As for equal access, Title Nine proved pivotal in my literary career: For having missed, in the late 1990s, my deadline for a major book project, I found salvation in a part-time, holiday season warehouse packing job with the company.