Mamie “Peanut” Johnson - Female Player for Negro Baseball Leagues
At a time when African-Americans were generally excluded from mainstream sports, female baseball legend Mamie “Peanut” Johnson said the old Negro Baseball League “provided me with invaluable opportunities.”
Johnson, one of only three females who played in the Negro League, the black professional baseball league that paralleled the segregated white baseball leagues until the 1950s, was in Washington June 5 for a discussion on the achievements of African-Americans in baseball hosted by the Library of Congress.
“The Negro League was the backbone of the black community at the time. It gave me a sense of responsibility to myself and to others,” Johnson attested.
At 17, Johnson tried out for a place on a professional women’s baseball team, but was rejected because of her race. Before her tryout for the female league, Johnson said she had not been exposed to the “ignorance” of racial segregation.
“I was just as talented and looked just as good playing baseball as the white female players did,” she said, “but I was never even considered to play in the league. That’s when I realized what segregation meant.”
But the rejection did not hinder her success. Since there was no black equivalent of the white women’s league, Johnson tried out with and went on to play in the men’s Negro Leagues, which featured legends such as Satchel Paige, whom she says helped her perfect her curveball.
“I’m proud to say I struck out some of the best there was,” Johnson explained regarding her competitive nature with the male players. “I got to meet and play with some of the best baseball players that ever picked up a bat.”
Johnson’s got her nickname, “Peanut,” when another male player made a false assumption about her abilities because she was a woman and “small in size.”
Johnson recalled, “He said I wasn’t any bigger than a peanut, so how did I expect to strike anyone out?” Her response to the challenge: “Well, I struck him out.”
After that, Johnson was a “peanut” only in name. The other players regarded her abilities as anything but small and to her teammates, she was just another member of the team regardless of her gender. “I was accepted and treated very well by the other male players,” Johnson remarked about the “wonderful gentlemen” she played with.
Johnson fit right in reminiscing with the other former Negro League players participating in the Library of Congress discussion. Wilmer Fields of the Homestead Grays and Ernest Burke of the Baltimore Elite Giants, along with Johnson, recalled their baseball days with only the fondest memories.
“The best days of my life were when I was playing baseball,” Johnson reminisced.
According to South Carolina African American History Online, Johnson started her baseball career with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953, winning 33 games and losing only 8 by the end of her career. Her batting average ranged from .262 to .284.
Johnson left the Negro Leagues in 1955, but the game never really left her. Currently, she runs the Negro League’s Memorabilia Shop in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and she also coaches all-star baseball teams.
Now, with a seemingly short baseball career under her belt, her legend status has far exceeded the number of games she played.
“We loved the game,” she said, “back then, none of the rest of it mattered, not even the money.”
The first black baseball league was organized in 1920 in response to black exclusion from the major league white teams and a need for organization among black teams. For 50 years, two spheres of baseball existed, one black and one white.
This changed when Jackie Robinson crossed the color line in 1947 and signed to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Over the next decade, the Negro Leagues slowly dwindled as more and more black players signed contracts with Major League Baseball, effectively integrating the sport.
