Books By James Overmyer

James Overmyer, 2020

Effa Manley, co-owner of a championship Negro League team with her husband Abe, is the only female member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Operating in the almost-entirely man’s world of Negro League ball, she staked out strong positions on civil rights and business-like operations by her Newark Eagles in the often-freewheeling world of Black baseball. The book’s 2020 Centennial Edition update covers the significance of her election to the Hall of Fame, as well as casts additional light on her colorful personal life.

James E. Overmyer, 2020

Posey is one of only two people elected to two American professional sports halls of fame. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016. Considered to be one of the best players in the 1920s world of Black basketball, he also organized and owned a championship African American team, on which he played. At the same time, he was running the Homestead Grays, an up-and-coming semi-professional baseball team in Pittsburgh. Posey built the Grays into a dominant Negro League team that won eight straight league pennants in the 1930s and ‘40s.

James E. Overmyer, 2014

The Giants flourished in independent and Negro League baseball during what has become known as the “Boardwalk Empire” of the resort city of Atlantic City. The colorful, and often corrupt, atmosphere of the city didn’t affect the Giants directly, but it is telling that they were recruited to play on a team named after Mayor Harry Bacharach, running for re-election. The team rose from the local and regional semi-pro ranks in the baseball hotbed of the time in Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia to win two Negro League championships in the 1920s. The book includes yearly player statistics and the team’s won-loss records.