*On this date in 1936, The Newark Eagles are celebrated. They were a professional Negro league baseball team.
They were owned by Abe and Effa Manley and played in the Negro National League from 1936 to 1948. The Newark Eagles were formed in 1936 when the Newark Dodgers, established in 1933, merged with the Brooklyn Eagles, established in 1935. Abe Manley and his African American wife, owners and founders of the Brooklyn Eagles, purchased the Newark Dodgers franchise and combined the assets and player rosters.
Charles Tyler, the previous owner of the Dodgers, signed the team over in exchange for the cancellation of an approximately $500 debt that Tyler owed Abe Manley. Team management was left to Effa, making the Eagles the first professional team owned and operated by a woman. The Eagles shared Ruppert Stadium with the minor league Newark Bears. The Eagles were to (Black) Newark, and the Dodgers were to Brooklyn. After the close of the 1948 season, in the aftermath of Jackie Robinson's integration into Major League Baseball a year earlier, the Negro National League contracted and merged into the Negro American League.
The Eagles were sold and moved to Houston, Texas, for the 1949 season, where they became known as the Houston Eagles, part of the NAL's western division. Two years later, they again relocated, this time to New Orleans. The New Orleans Eagles lasted one year before folding after the 1951 season.
