Mamie "Peanut" Johnson

The first and only female to pitch baseball in the Negro Major League.

Mamie Johnson, the daughter of Gentry Harrison and Della Belton Havelow, was born on September 27, 1935 in Ridgeway, South Carolina. Growing up under the care of her grandmother, she recalled playing baseball every day. The baseball was a rock wrapped in heavy twine and held together with gaffer tape. "You get it wrapped real tight, you get a needle and you sew it and then you put the tape on it and after you put the tape on it, it'll fly." Johnson said in an NPR interview. She said she learned to throw strikes by knocking birds off fences with those homemade baseballs.

After her grandmother died and she left to live in New Jersey, her uncle Leo "Bones" Belton gifted her with a real baseball from an exhibiton game between the Atlanta Black Crackers and the Birmingham Black Barons. That was the first time she had heard of Blacks playing baseball.

While living in New Jerey, she talked herself onto a boys Police Athletic League team when she was ten years old.  Thanks to her pitching, they won division championships two years in a row.

When Johnson and a friend went to one of the tryouts for the All American Girls Baseball  League (AAGBL) that the movie A League of Their Own is based on, she said "they just looked at us like we were crazy as if to say, 'What do you want?'  There is a scene in the movie where a ball goes awry and a woman of African descent, catches it and fires it back. That could have been 17 year old Mamie Johnson. While there was no official policy against Black women playing, there were no efforts to recruit or place them on the teams durig the twelve years the AAGBL existed

While living in Washington DC with her mothr Johnson was signed to play with the Alexndria All Stars when she was just sixteen then played with the minor league team St. Cyprian's at Bannecker FIeld across from Howard University. That's where she was approached to try out for the Negro League team the Indianapolis Clowns. Mamie Johnson successfully tried out and got to play with some of the best baseball players that ever picked up a bat or fielded a ball. She was the second woman to join the Negro Leagues and played three seasons of pro ball (1953 to 1955) with the Indianapolis Clowns as a pitcher in regular rotation. That meant she started every six days. She also played utility second base.

During her first game with the Clowns, opposing player Hank Bayliss yelled out "What makes you think you can strike a batter out? Why you aren't any larger than a peanut!" Johnson let her pitches speak for her and the player struck out. After that the 100 pound pitcher became known as "Peanut".

Mamie played alongside legends like the great Satchel Paige, who helped her refine her curve ball. She had a few problems initially with men who thought she should be "in a kitchen" or off "having somebody's baby." Johnson said simply, "That wasn't my shot." Though the nickname "Peanut" stuck resentment toward Johnson did not. For the most part, the players accepted her. "The men I played with were complete gentlemen,"emphasized Johnson.

Traveling was hard on all the players of the Negro Leagues since few hotels would rent rooms and  restaurants would make them eat in the back, order food to be taken back to the bus or refuse to serve people of African descent at all. Instead of staying with the men who slept on the bus or on hay in barns, the team managers arranged for Mamie and the other women to sleep with local families for the night.

Mamie "Peanut"  Johnson has not left baseball entirely and continues to be sought after for  interviews on the Negro League and speaking engagements.

Johnson has some strong opinions about today's players and bemoans the modern players' lack of  sense of history. At a reunion event a few years ago she stated "I don't think they realize, or understand, that if it weren't for these gentlemen," said Johnson, referring to her fellow panel members, "for Mr. Robinson, for Mr. Banks, Mr. Aaron, Mr. Mays, then they wouldn't be where they are today."

In  2004 the Rosedale playground in Washington, D.C. , the park where Mamie  was "discovered", was re-named after her. Mamie's name appears on the Negro League's Wall of Fame at Miller Park in Milwaukee, the only thing preserved from the old County Stadium. She is the recipient of the Mary McLeod Bethune Continuing the Legacy Award. Mamie "Peanut" Johnson is the only one of the three women who played in the Negro Leagues still living.