SHE LOVED B

ASEBALL

THE E

F FA MAN

L E Y STO

RY

By Mrs. Witkowsky & Mrs. Gilden’sFirst Grade Class

1. When Effa Brooks was in first grade, she was called to the principal’s office. She was told not to play with the “Negro” children.

Gabby

2. “Those negroes” were Effa’s brothers and sisters. Effa’s skin was light like her mother’s. Her brothers and sisters had dark skin like their father.

Anvi

3. People with dark skin could not eat in certain restaurants or swim in public pools. “That’s just the way things are,” people said. It never made sense to Effa.

Jared

4. After high school Effa moved to New York. She went to Yankee Stadium to see Babe Ruth and his mighty swing. She fell in love with baseball and with Abe Manley who also loved baseball.

Sutton

5. Abe and Effa liked to go out in Harlem. One thing bothered Effa—even though Harlem was a black community, all the businesses were owned by white people and black people were not hired for most jobs. Effa knew this wasn’t right.

McKenna

6. She created the Citizens’ League for Fair Play. They went to Harlem’s biggest store and asked them to hire black sales clerks. The owner said no.

Royce

7. Effa fought on. People marched with signs that said, “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work!” The people in Harlem would not shop at the store. This is called a boycott.

Thalia

8. The boycott worked. Soon many black people were working in the stores of Harlem.

Mony

9. After Abe and Effa married, they started a baseball team named the Brooklyn Eagles.

Nicole

10. Abe handled the team and Effa took care of the team’s planning, equipment and travel. Soon she was taking care of all the team’s business.

Addy

11. When Effa went to league meetings, other owners cried out, “Baseball’s no place for a woman!” After a while the other owners came to respect her for her good business sense.

Kyle

12. Effa really cared about her players. The players called her their “Mother Hen.”

Lauren

13. After the team moved to New Jersey, the Eagles won the Negro League World Series. It was Effa’s proudest moment.

Kosta

14. When Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player in the major leagues, many Negro league teams began losing their best players—without even getting paid for them.

Gabriel

15. While she was happy for her players to get a chance in the big league, Effa didn’t think this was right. She talked to the newspapers and let people know how unfair this was.

Sadhika

16. In 1947, Abe and Effa’s Eagles were paid $15,000 for Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League. After that the major league team owners always paid Negro League teams for their players.

Jack

17. As more and more players left, the Negro League came to an end. After Effa’s husband Abe died, she started writing letters to convince the Baseball Hall

of Fame to include the best Negro League players. Soon 9 Negro League players were inducted into the hall.

Andrew

18. Effa continued to write the Hall of Fame to include more Negro League players until the day she died in 1981. But the Hall felt its job was done.

Emily

19. Then on July 30, 2006, twelve other Negro League players were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Effa would have been so proud!

Tej

20. Something else happened that day. Effa Manley was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with them. She was the first woman ever to be so honored.

Niko

21. On her gravestone it says: SHE LOVED BASEBALL. She is still the only woman in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Robyn

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