How Philly native Effa Manley became the only woman enshrined in Cooperstown

There is only one woman enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Effa Manley, who was born in Philadelphia and graduated from William Penn Central High in 1916, was inducted posthumously in 2006. She and her husband Abe, whom she married in 1933, bought the Negro National League’s Brooklyn Eagles in 1935, and the team merged with the Newark Dodgers to form the legendary Newark Eagles in 1936. The Manleys owned the franchise through 1948.

Effa Manley also was a civil rights activist who put action behind her strong statements.

“Effa is not the one that’s like, ‘Well, at least I’m here,’” said Andrea Williams, who wrote Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues. “Effa’s like, ‘I’m here, and I’m going to say what needs to be said, even if what needs to be said is the thing that nobody else will say.’ ”

Manley’s mother was white and her mother’s husband was Black. A fair-skinned woman, she identified with the Black community because of her upbringing. While her siblings had a Black father, Manley’s father was believed to be a wealthy white man, John Marcus Bishop, a stockbroker for whom her mother worked.

Manley’s racial background is unconfirmed, but her passion for equality was undeniable.

“There are a lot of people who you could tell, really if they could, they would step outside of their Blackness in the first opportunity that they have,” Williams said. “But Effa, given this choice, chose Blackness, and is therefore that much intentional in it.”

In a time when women were perceived to have limited power, Manley was a pioneer who led boycotts and protests in the fight for civil rights.

One of the most notable was a 1934 boycott of the chain of five L.M. Blumstein department stores in Harlem. Manley was a secretary for the Citizens League for Fair Play, which believed that since Black people provided much of the profit, they deserved job opportunities beyond janitorial and elevator-operator positions. The two-month boycott resulted in Black people getting jobs as sales clerks.

“This was a pretty big deal in Harlem, and she was right smack in the middle of it,” said Jim Overmyer, who wrote Queen of the Negro Leagues.

As for her interest in running a baseball franchise, she had no experience in the game but her natural charisma and savvy made her a perfect fit.

Take opening day in 1935, for example. In Williams’s book, Manley is described as a “one-woman PR machine.” She put on a show as the team marched from home plate to center field, joined by an all-Black marching band. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia threw the ceremonial first pitch.

The Eagles were one of the league’s best NNL teams under the Manleys. They featured seven future Hall of Famers, including Monte Irvin, Leon Day and Larry Doby. Don Newcombe pitched for them in 1944-45 and went on to become a four-time All-Star with the Dodgers.

The Eagles shocked baseball when they knocked off the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1946 Negro World Series. The Monarchs’ star-studded roster was led by Hall of Famer Satchel Paige.

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However, the joy of 1946 was short-lived. Major league executives like Branch Rickey of the Dodgers soon would start to cherry-pick the best players from the Negro Leagues. As evident by her activism and ownership position, Manley was a strong advocate for the growth of Negro League baseball.

That growth was stalled when Rickey poached Jackie Robinson. He also got Newcombe from Manley’s Eagles.

Effa and Abe’s ownership tenure ended in 1948, but not before another encounter with a major league executive. Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck wanted Doby, who was one of the top NNL players. He offered $10,000, but Manley objected. She didn’t have much bargaining room with the trend of integration. Williams noted in her book how even Black newspapers were turning away from Negro League coverage as integration became the biggest story.

Manley sold Doby for $15,000, and he became the first Black to play in the American League on July 5, 1947. A win for Manley? That depends on whom you ask. On one hand, Manley was the owner who managed to get something for her players while other Negro League owners were empty-handed. On another, $15,000 for a player of Doby’s caliber was a relatively low price compared to that of white players.

“If we’re going to talk about who is at fault within the Negro Leagues for being complicit in its demise, we can’t start with Effa,” Williams said. “The Black press had already left and most of the players were already itching, hoping they could be next.”

“I don’t know if it would have worked out that much better had she adopted a tougher bargaining stance,” Overmyer said. “No other Negro League team got that good [of] a price at that time.”

Manley died in 1981 at the age of 84.

In some ways, Manley’s presence felt ahead of her time. Imagine what she could have done today for women and African Americans in the fight for opportunities. Imagine the long-term impact she could have had if she was given similar resources as major league owners who pulled the top NNL players.

But in other ways, she was right on time. Along with other women involved in the ownership of Negro League teams such as Olivia Taylor, Henryene Green, Hilda Bolden-Shorter, and Minnie Forbes, she showed that women could be successful in prominent roles in baseball that were traditionally reserved for men.

“She was not afraid to make jaws drop,” Williams said, “because at the end of the day, her goal was to always move her people forward.”