Baseball's Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues

For fans of Hidden Figures and Steve Sheinkin's Undefeated, this is the powerful true story of Effa Manley, the first and only woman in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.Before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, Negro Leagues Baseball was the only game in town for black athletes. And those leagues owed their existence and success to savvy businesspeople like Effa Manley, the black female co-owner of the Newark Eagles. Effa was the team's business manager, leading her team to win the Negro World Series in 1946. But this victory was bittersweet: Integration was on its way, and the demise of the Negro Leagues would soon follow.In this riveting nonfiction account, author Andrea Williams weaves the parallel stories of the segregated leagues with the tale of an inspiring woman who was at the center of it all.