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10 - Double V
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184 10 Double V There was one critic who stood fast and did not buy into any of the hoopla and extravagant praises for Satchel Paige. She maintained that his actions were hurtful to Negro Leagues Baseball and that he violated contractual agreements and the spirit of what Negro Leagues ball was all about. She did not think he deserved to play in the East-West All-Star Game or be admitted back into the Negro Leagues without serving his suspension and paying the levied fines. As far as she was concerned, Paige was a pariah, a bird of prey whose wings needed to be clipped before he brought all of Negro Leagues Baseball to its knees. Newark Eagles owner Effa Manley stood her ground. Manley also thought that Negro Leagues Baseball served a higher purpose, namely, as a symbol of racial pride and black self-assertion. She was a strong, outspoken race woman on every level, and that colored her leadership of the Newark Eagles, her activism in the community, and her steadfastness against Paige. She concluded that Paige was a figment of the imagination and she spoke her mind as a “Negro woman.” Ironically, Effa Manley was genetically a white woman who, raised by her mother and black stepfather, embraced African American culture and chose to live her life as a black woman. Satchel Paige, she contended, was basically the creation of a powerful Jewish coalition that was making money off him. In short, Paige, as she would complain to close associates, was a tool in the Jewish conspiracy to control Negro Leagues Baseball. Manley wrote a bitter letter to Cum Posey in which she shared her confidences and severe criticism of Paige and the Jews. Hers was a long- 185 Double V standing, but rarely openly spoken, view that Jews had prominent positions in sports scheduling of athletic facilities and stadia that worked against the best interests of black team owners. Abe Saperstein of the Harlem Globetrotters was one she pointed to. Saperstein was also involved in promoting and scheduling Negro Leagues games and the renting of Major Leagues ballparks for the events. Manley did not like Saperstein, and she was upset beyond words with Ed Gottlieb, whom she considered to be a shady character. Manley told other blacks that she was tired of the control of the white man and especially the Jews. She confided, “Those two white men [Gottlieb and Saperstein] have decided we Negroes are just putty in their hands. I don’t know what will eventually be done. After all you all permitted Wilkinson to take Satchel from me, and Gottlieb Yankee Stadium.” It was her contention that if the black owners wanted to come together, she invited them to join the Eagles in the effort to “stop Gottlieb, Wilkinson, Leuschner, Saperstein and all the others.” She questioned Paige’s racial consciousness because he had “not shown his colors.” Paige, for his part, completely ignored the accusations.1 Manley continued to be dismayed that black owners “don’t seem to be able to get together and get their act together while the O-Fays [whites] are all pulling together, and are even lucky enough to have a few of the Negroes pulling with them.” She had Paige in mind. Any mention of him angered her. She was especially upset with new evidence that Paige was getting extra compensation from Gottlieb, $542 to be exact, for the most recent game against the Eagles. She felt that money should have been divided among the clubs and not given to any one player. Manley shared with Posey her contention that it was Gottlieb at work as usual: “I told him I would not stand for anything taken out for Satchel,” but he did it anyway.2 Paige, his Jewish supporters, and the Negro Leagues’ male owners all continued to be flash points for Manley as the world went to war. She ended in a letter to Gottlieb, which was dated November 4, 1941, that it did “seem ridiculous that intelligent people cannot come to an agreement about anything, but after all the whole world is arguing at present.” Indeed, much of the world was “arguing.” In just thirty-four days after her letter, that argument would also fully engulf the United States of America and have a profound impact on Satchel Paige and the Negro Leagues.3 The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a jolt to Paige, as it was to all...