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Baseball's Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues by Andrea Williams
leasummer's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars - this is a YA non fiction, written in double space formatting. It’s got a lot of great black and white photos of players and events of the time. It’s a bit dry for a really interesting story about the an amazing woman and the Negro Leagues. The rise and fall are heartbreaking and emotional, but I didn’t feel any emotion in the story. I’m glad to have learned about this amazing woman I knew little about and this part of the history of baseball.
willa_reads_books's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
included a lot just about negro league history. very interesting and informative. i definitely enjoyed it
danibee33's review against another edition
4.25
Changed so much of my understanding of baseball history, particularly about Jackie Robinson & Branch Rickey/the breaking of the colour barrier in baseball. Effa Manley was SUCH a baddie, where is her movie?? GIVE ME MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS.
colin_cox's review against another edition
5.0
In December 2020, Major League Baseball made a decision that, far from salvaging 2020, rendered the year a little less ruinous: they classified seven "Negro League Baseball" teams as official major league teams. According to CBS's R. J. Anderson, this decision validates the statistics (batting and pitching stastics or "counting stats" have historically measured a player's worth, value, and prestige) of 3,400 players from 1920-1948. Before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947, baseball was segregated by race, like so much of American society. However, in baseball's early days, several Black ballplayers shared the field with White ballplayers, but not without consternation (i.e., bigotry and racism) from Cap Anson, arguably one of his generation's best players. Thanks in part to Anson's protestations (i.e., bigotry and racism), the International League decided in 1887 not to extend contracts to any Black players. As Andrea Williams writes in her excellent book on Negro League team owner Effa Manley, "Anson's stance became the crux of a so-called gentleman's agreement—so-called not because there was anything 'gentlemanly' about it, but because it was never decreed by written rule. Yet even as the agreement remained unwritten, it became all-powerful, the hidden force that would guide the evolution of professional baseball for generations to come" (31). As Williams suggests, this "all-powerful" and "hidden force" created the conditions for owners like Manley to build "a vehicle to transport the Black community to a position of equality in American society, to provide jobs and financial stability where they were sorely lacking, and to give Black boys and girls regular opportunities to witness victory when so much of their lives was mired in defeat" (5-6).
Williams's Baseball's Leading Lady is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in learning more about what the Negro Leagues were and how they converged with more significant questions about race, racism, sexism, workers rights, and equality in the United States. As Williams suggests, the rise and fall of the Negro Leagues symbolize much of the Black experience in the United States: success was limited to few Black people, that success was fleeting and often precarious, and "success" under no circumstances meant equality of treatment or opportunity.
Take, for example, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey. Rickey is often lionized for "breaking baseball's color barrier" by signing Jackie Robinson in 1945. Williams complicates his legacy by detailing how Rickey's decision to sign Robinson and integrate baseball excluded Negro League team owners, both financially and structurally. Rickey declined to compensate the Kansas City Monarchs (Robinson's Negro League team) once he signed Robinson. While there are inherent ethical problems with treating players (which is to say, people) like commodities, compensating teams for players' services is a practice that occurs even today. The Korea Baseball Organization or KBO has a posting system that compensates KBO teams when players sign with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. Even within the MLB, teams trade players for other players, and in some circumstances, receive compensation when a former player signs with a new team. But as Williams suggests, failing to compensate Negro League teams for their players once they signed with MLB teams ensured the eventual extinction of Negro League baseball. Williams writes, "Effa felt it would be in the best interest of the Negro Leagues, then, to form a partnership with Major League Baseball, to perhaps have Black teams become official farm clubs of the white ones. This plan would keep Black baseball in operation, and it would also support integration by providing a steady stream of Black talent for the Majors. But Major League Baseball didn't get behind Effa's suggestions. Instead, it left the Negro Leagues to fend for themselves" (194). Specifically, regarding Rickey, Williams writes, "Rickey clearly had plans for the integration of the Majors, but those plans did not include Effa or the other owners" (199). These poaching and predatory practices by MLB teams guaranteed that racial progress and equality would move as slowly as possible. When Jackie Robinson wore a Dodger uniform in 1947, it was a momentous step forward for not just Black ballplayers but all Black people in the United States. But as Williams writes, "the lens of integration became focused on opportunities for individual Black players, not for entire Black teams or leagues" (220). Therefore, "what was great for the Majors proved fatal for the Negro Leagues" (261).
As Williams chronicles, Effa Manley's fight for Negro League baseball was a fight for racial equality, but it was also a fight against the racist, bigoted forces the operate in society today. For men like Branch Rickey, Black players were an opportunity for "Major League owners and executives [to] take what they wanted—the best Black athletes available—and leave behind what they didn't—the Black owners, executives, and coaches, and even the Black players who were past their playing prime or just not good enough to make the jump" (275). This is why Effa Manley's story matters; her story is a story of our present, not just our past.
Williams's Baseball's Leading Lady is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in learning more about what the Negro Leagues were and how they converged with more significant questions about race, racism, sexism, workers rights, and equality in the United States. As Williams suggests, the rise and fall of the Negro Leagues symbolize much of the Black experience in the United States: success was limited to few Black people, that success was fleeting and often precarious, and "success" under no circumstances meant equality of treatment or opportunity.
Take, for example, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey. Rickey is often lionized for "breaking baseball's color barrier" by signing Jackie Robinson in 1945. Williams complicates his legacy by detailing how Rickey's decision to sign Robinson and integrate baseball excluded Negro League team owners, both financially and structurally. Rickey declined to compensate the Kansas City Monarchs (Robinson's Negro League team) once he signed Robinson. While there are inherent ethical problems with treating players (which is to say, people) like commodities, compensating teams for players' services is a practice that occurs even today. The Korea Baseball Organization or KBO has a posting system that compensates KBO teams when players sign with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. Even within the MLB, teams trade players for other players, and in some circumstances, receive compensation when a former player signs with a new team. But as Williams suggests, failing to compensate Negro League teams for their players once they signed with MLB teams ensured the eventual extinction of Negro League baseball. Williams writes, "Effa felt it would be in the best interest of the Negro Leagues, then, to form a partnership with Major League Baseball, to perhaps have Black teams become official farm clubs of the white ones. This plan would keep Black baseball in operation, and it would also support integration by providing a steady stream of Black talent for the Majors. But Major League Baseball didn't get behind Effa's suggestions. Instead, it left the Negro Leagues to fend for themselves" (194). Specifically, regarding Rickey, Williams writes, "Rickey clearly had plans for the integration of the Majors, but those plans did not include Effa or the other owners" (199). These poaching and predatory practices by MLB teams guaranteed that racial progress and equality would move as slowly as possible. When Jackie Robinson wore a Dodger uniform in 1947, it was a momentous step forward for not just Black ballplayers but all Black people in the United States. But as Williams writes, "the lens of integration became focused on opportunities for individual Black players, not for entire Black teams or leagues" (220). Therefore, "what was great for the Majors proved fatal for the Negro Leagues" (261).
As Williams chronicles, Effa Manley's fight for Negro League baseball was a fight for racial equality, but it was also a fight against the racist, bigoted forces the operate in society today. For men like Branch Rickey, Black players were an opportunity for "Major League owners and executives [to] take what they wanted—the best Black athletes available—and leave behind what they didn't—the Black owners, executives, and coaches, and even the Black players who were past their playing prime or just not good enough to make the jump" (275). This is why Effa Manley's story matters; her story is a story of our present, not just our past.
taliaissmart's review against another edition
2.0
I’m not quite sure what audience this would work best for…it’s formatted for middle grade, but the content is super complex and involves business deals, politics, organized leagues and commissioners and boards, etc., etc. But it’s also written intentionally to explain these things to someone who may not have a lot of info. Anyway, this lack of clarity in terms of intended audience made the book feel kind of disjointed to me.