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Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues
by Andrea Williams
For fans of Hidden Figures and Steve Sheinkin's Undefeated, Andrea Williams's Baseball's Leading Lady is the powerful true story of Effa Manley, the first and only woman inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, Black athletes played in the Negro Leagues--on teams coached by Black managers, cheered on by Black fans, and often run by Black owners.
Here is the riveting true story of the woman at the center of the Black baseball world: Effa Manley, co-owner and business manager of the Newark Eagles. Elegant yet gutsy, she cultivated a powerhouse team. Yet just as her Eagles reached their pinnacle, so did calls to integrate baseball, a move that would all but extinguish the Negro Leagues.
On and off the field, Effa hated to lose. She had devoted her life to Black empowerment--but in the battle for Black baseball, was the game rigged against her?
"A smart and determined woman becomes an unlikely influence in baseball's Negro Leagues ... A fascinating contribution to baseball and racial history." ―Kirkus Reviews
"A well-organized, detailed introduction to Effa Manley, who was the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame." ―Booklist
"An important hole in baseball literature is addressed in this nonfiction recollection of businesswoman Effa Manley's role in the rise and fall of the Negro Leagues." ―School Library Journal
This information about Baseball's Leading Lady was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrea Williams is an author and journalist who worked in marketing and development for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, before turning to writing full-time. She now lives and writes in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four children.
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