When she was elected she received a lot of backlash as it was said the only reason she was elected was because she was a women and she didn’t really run the team. The book “Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and World Series that Changed Baseball” by Luke Epplin it talks a lot about Ms. Manley. By the way I highly recommend this book. She sold Larry Doby to the Indians. Unlike Branch Rickey, Bill Veeck felt he had to pay the Negro League owners to players he would bring to his team. However, he didn’t want to go crazy about it. Ms. Manley thought she should have gotten more (and she was right) money and was reluctant to make the deal. However, she thought it would be better for her race in the long run and gave up Doby to the Indians.
Another thing Ms. Manley did was become a civil rights activist. In fact, she use to arrange promotions at the ballpark (as owner of the Newark Eagles) related to civil rights. Some of these promotions raised money to train and provide equipment for black doctors. Hard to believe even at that time most blacks weren’t allowed to practice medicine.
This lady did a lot for baseball and blacks in general and deserves to be in the baseball hall of fame.
