By: Michelle Y. Green
This was an amazing biography of a young, black woman living in the 1940's who was one of the first African-American professional baseball players. She is still alive today and loves baseball more today than ever.
I found this biography to be very interesting and inspiring. Mamie loved the game of baseball and not only was she a woman, she was also black. Black women playing baseball was not something that was done during her time. Things were still segregated-schools, neighborhoods, gas stations, baseball fields, everything. Mamie was determined to play baseball no matter the fact that she's a woman and black. She felt this should not make any difference whatsoever. During the story, readers get a sense of the frustration Mamie felt because of who she was which was completely unfair. I just wanted to yell at some of the "white folks" for the treatment of Mamie.
There was a very funny part in the story. After Mamie had made the professional black minor league baseball team (with all male teammates plus one woman), it was discussed in her book about the travel conditions when playing in different cities. Mamie was frustrated because the old bus the team rode on would break down and the players would have to push the bus uphill before a game and would already be tired before their game. Green stated, "And we never knew if we had enough gas to make it from place to place, 'cause some of the towns we stopped in had 'Whites-Only' gas pumps. That never made sense to me. Seems like if those towns were so anxious to get rid of colored folks, they'd want to give us the gas we needed to get on down the road" (86). This is also what I appreciated about Mamie Johnson-her blunt honesty.
This is a truly inspiring story about a woman, her love for baseball and how she overcame barriers and boundaries due to her strong love of the game.
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