Mamie Johnson: Peanut Who Stood Tall in Negro Leagues

PEPPER PIKE, Oh. -- Three women played professional baseball in the Negro Leagues, but only one was a Peanut.

Mamie Peanut Johnson stood all of 5-foot-3 and weighed 120 pounds. But in the vernacular of today, Johnson could bring it. She had no "out" pitch she relied on. Just a windup and 120 pounds of South Carolina-born Peanut power.

"Anything I needed to throw, darling," Johnson said as she prepared for a panel discussion on the history of women in baseball at Ursuline College on Cleveland's East Side. " We pitched to strike somebody out."

That she did. Johnson won 33 games in the three years she played for the Indianapolis Clowns, three years (1953-55) that were difficult for blacks. But Johnson smiles at every moment of friendship, camaraderie and competition.

"It's like doing what you want to do, and you're with who you want to do it, with and everybody is about everybody else," she said. "That's the way it was. It was a beautiful thing."

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