Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles

by James Overmyer

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues, this book honors the life of Effa Manley, the trailblazing female co-owner of baseball’s Newark Eagles.

The first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, there was no one like Effa Manley in the sports world of the 1930s and 1940s. She was a sophisticated woman who owned a baseball team. She never shrank from going head to head with men, who dominated the ranks of sports executives. That her life story remained unchronicled for so long can only be attributed to one her team, the Newark Eagles, belonged to the Negro Leagues.

In Queen of the Negro Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles, Negro Leagues Centennial Edition, James Overmyer brings to light new details regarding Effa Manley’s fascinating story, including previously-unknown information about her childhood and family. Overmyer wonderfully portrays Effa Manley’s trailblazing life, her championship baseball team, and a thriving black community in Newark that took the Eagles into their hearts. In addition, this book contains updates regarding the Negro Leagues, its talented rank of players, and Manley’s induction into the Hall of Fame.

This important work shines the spotlight on a previously unsung segment of baseball history. Drawing extensively from Eagle team records and Manley’s scrapbook, Queen of the Negro Leagues is the definitive biography of a groundbreaking female sports executive.

Genres: Baseball, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Sports, American History, African American

312 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1993

About the author

James E. Overmyer is a former crime beat reporter n Pittsfield, Massachusetts, before becoming an administrator in the District Attorney’s Office there, and eventually a staff member of the New York State Office of Court Administration in nearby Albany, New York. His experiences in those jobs led him to write his current book, “The Electrocution of Baby Lawrence.”

He has also written three books and several articles in his other field of interest, sports history. His major work is Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles, the biography of the woman owner of a major league baseball team in the pre-integration Negro Leagues who is the only female member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

...maybe men shouldn't write biographies about women 🤷‍♀️. Instead of using her work as a way to explore the growth and ultimate demise of the negro league, she was rather used as a framing device to focus on primarily the league. There are only so many times where an author can be like.... and she was a woman, without analyzing what that might have meant as a woman who had an ambiguous racial background in the mid-twentieth century and that sort of thought was not there.

[Daryl Grigsby]

this is a fascinating detailed look at the interplay between negro league baseball as a business, a cultural resource, entertainment, political equality, black capitalism, and a statement about human dignity. not to mention the powerful statement for women's equality made by a female owner in the Negro Leagues

[M. Low · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great exploration of the Queen Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues.

[Jessica Fellows · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing book. When the books main character is in the title of the book you would think you would find her mentioned more than a few times in a chapter. Over and over you start a chapter, that is many pages long I will add and it’s not until say page 4 when her name even comes up. This book was not about Effa Manley but the battles and struggles of the Negro Leagues. That’s a fine topic if that’s what you want to write about but don’t mislead your readers the way you did.