| Playing with Passion: Profiles of Negro League baseball players. |
Effa manley
Position: Owner/Manager and Negro League Advocate
Career: 1935 – 1948
n the 1930’s and 1940’s, women were often viewed as second-class citizens, and blacks were accorded few rights. But, Effa Manley was aggressive and progressive, glamorous and magnanimous, and overcame obstacles to become one of the most fascinating and significant figures in Negro League History. Effa was the only female manager and her considerable influence extended beyond baseball into the black civil rights movement.
Effa and her husband, Abe Manley, started the Eagles team in Brooklyn in 1935, playing in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Ebbets field. In 1936, they purchased the Newark Dodgers franchise and moved the Eagles to New Jersey where team management became Effa’s responsibility.
Manley was known as a player’s advocate. She fought for better schedules, better travel and better salaries. She provided the Eagles with an air-conditioned, $15,000 Flexible Clipper bus, a first for the Negro League. Worried about what her players would do for employment during the off-season, she and her husband sponsored a team in the Puerto Rican winter league. Under her management, the Newark Eagles won the Negro World Series in 1946, shortly before Jackie Robinson broke the color line. As a result of Robinson’s move, Manley lost the services of Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, and Don Newcombe. She spoke out against the raiding of Negro League teams by major league clubs without compensation, but despite her efforts, the Eagles had to disband in 1948. Effa Manley died at the age of 81 on April 16, 1981. She was admitted posthumously into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 2006.
*Players' biographies are excerpted from copyrighted materials and used with permission of the Negro League Baseball Players Association (www.NLBPA.com)
