The Newark Eagles: Swinging Away During Newark’s Heyday

This article appears in SABR’s “The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions” (2019), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Newark, New Jersey, thrived as a city of commerce and culture. Its waterfront location and transportation facilities established Newark as an industrial center, providing jobs for its diverse citizenry. By the 1930s and ’40s, Downtown Newark was home to major retailers like Hahne’s, Bamberger’s, S. Klein on the Square, and Kresge’s, attracting shoppers from miles around. There was easy rail access to New York City and beyond as Newark was a major stop on the busy Northeast Corridor line. Newark Airport, opened in 1928, was the largest commercial airport in the country and the only airport to serve New York City until the opening of LaGuardia Airport in 1939. Bus and streetcar transportation extended through the city to its suburbs. Newark was a cultural and entertainment center with live shows and first-run movies at its many theaters and concert halls. Night life was rich as the big bands and jazz performers of the day made Newark nightclubs a stopping point on their show tours. The Mosque Theater, later known as Newark Symphony Hall, was home to classical, opera, and symphony stage performances. There was something for everyone in Newark.

Newark was a melting pot of nationalities dominated by immigrants from Europe. German and Irish settlers arrived first and were joined later by Eastern Europeans. Together, they filled Newark’s tight-knit wards along ethnic lines, with each community having its own unique culture. African-Americans were attracted to Newark during their migration from the South in pursuit of the many manufacturing jobs that became available, particularly during World Wars I and II. They, too, brought their unique culture to the overall Newark experience.

Newark was also a baseball town. It was home to minor-league clubs beginning in the 1880s, most notably the famed Newark Bears team that, in Newark’s heyday, was the top affiliate of the New York Yankees. The 1937 Bears are considered to be one of the greatest minor-league clubs of all time. The Newark Peppers of the Federal League played across the Passaic River in neighboring Harrison and gave Newark one season of major-league status in 1915. Built in 1926, venerable Ruppert Stadium in Newark’s Ironbound section became home to baseball and other major sporting events. Every baseball season, thousands of fans from Newark and its surrounding towns came by bus and streetcar to the spacious, 19,000-seat concrete and steel ballpark on Wilson Avenue. From 1936 through 1948, Newark’s African-American community also flocked to Ruppert Stadium to rally around a team of its own, the legendary Newark Eagles of the Negro National League. The history of the Eagles parallels that of blacks in America who struggled through the segregation era to break down color barriers in baseball as well as life.

BASEBALL’S COLOR BARRIER AND THE NEWARK CONNECTION

Unfortunately, Newark was also the place of the launching of a racial injustice that lasted 70 years – the “gentlemen’s agreement” that resulted in the banning of blacks from the highest levels of professional white baseball. Prior to the Newark incident, the drums of prejudice were already being sounded. On July 11, 1887, The Sporting News, an influential voice for the game of baseball, editorialized against “certain baseball associations [which have] done more damage to the International League than to any other we know of. We refer to the importation of colored players into the ranks of that body.”1

That summer, pitcher George Stovey and catcher Moses “Fleetwood” Walker, both black, played for the Newark Little Giants of the International League. Stovey had a record of 33-14 while Walker batted .236. On July 19, 1887, the Chicago White Stockings (later the Cubs) of the National League arrived in Newark to play the Little Giants in an exhibition game. Chicago manager Adrian “Cap” Anson refused to allow the White Stockings onto the field if Stovey and Walker played. Fearing the loss of a lucrative gate, the Little Giants complied.2 By the 1888 season, the unwritten but unyielding segregation agreement was in place, not to be broken until Jackie Robinson took the field for the Montreal Royals at Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium in April 1946.

EARLY SEGREGATED BASEBALL – SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE EAGLES

In the late nineteenth century, all-black barnstorming teams formed, which competed mostly against white teams in the minor leagues. A notable New Jersey entry was the Cuban Giants, a squad that played in the Mid-States League and called Trenton its home. In 1920 Rube Foster formed the original Negro National League, eventually a 10-team circuit which played through 1931. In the Northeast, the Eastern Colored League began play in 1923,3 and during its run, the Atlantic City Bacharachs brought organized Negro league baseball to New Jersey.

The Bacharachs, named because of the backing of Atlantic City Mayor Harry Bacharach, played in the 1926 Negro League World Series, losing to the Chicago American Giants, five games to three. They were led by shortstop John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, also known as “the black Honus Wagner.”4 They disbanded in the 1930s, during the period in which black baseball was establishing itself in Newark.5

The Negro National League re-formed in 1933. In 1934 the Newark Dodgers joined the league, and in 1935 they were joined by the Brooklyn Eagles, owned by Abe and Effa Manley, who recently had relocated from Philadelphia. Playing at Ebbets Field when the white Brooklyn Dodgers were away, the Manleys sought to take advantage of the growing black population in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn for fan support.6 However, they found this was not enough as the competition for the Depression-era entertainment dollar in Brooklyn was fierce. The Eagles’ attendance was poor, and the Manleys, determined to succeed in Negro baseball, looked across Newark Bay for greener pastures.

THE MANLEYS’ EAGLES COME TO NEWARK

The Negro National League’s Newark Dodgers, a last-place club in 1935, had little success drawing fans. The Manleys purchased the club from Charles Tyler, merged rosters with the Eagles, and left Brooklyn for Newark in 1936. The combined roster included two young players who would eventually be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the Eagles pitcher Leon Day and the Dodgers third baseman Ray Dandridge. These two players formed the backbone of the Newark Eagles into the 1940s.7

The Manleys met at Yankee Stadium during the 1932 World Series and married in 1935.8 Prior to moving to New York, Abe made a considerable amount of money running a numbers game in Camden, New Jersey, as well as in real estate. Even though wealthy, he mostly shunned black high society and focused on his life as a “sportsman,” enjoying his wealth in a man’s world. Owning a baseball club was a natural match for Abe, and his percentage of investment in his team was one of the highest among all Negro league owners.9

Abe Manley is frequently overshadowed by his wife Effa’s ownership accomplishments, but he himself was an important presence with the Eagles and the league. He was named treasurer of the NNL in 1937 and was a league officer for most of his ownership tenure.10 While Effa ran the business management of the Eagles, Abe was chiefly responsible for the on-field aspects. There were no elaborate scouting operations in Negro baseball, and Abe functioned as the talent evaluator for up-and-coming players. He did establish working agreements with feeder teams in the Southern Negro League, the Winston-Salem Eagles and the Asheville Blues.11 Between this and his scouting New Jersey for local talent, Abe managed to build a consistently competitive club for Newark.

THE EARLY EAGLES: 1936-1940

In a league that was dominated by the powerful Homestead Grays, the Eagles finished in second place in three out of the five years preceding World War II. The 1937-38 Eagles infield was thought to be the best in the league. At first base was the power-hitting George “Mule” Suttles, who led the league in home runs in both seasons.12 Slick-fielding Dick Seay and Willie Wells held down second base and shortstop respectively. Ray Dandridge was a mainstay at third base. The 1930’s outfield usually consisted of Jimmie Crutchfield, 1939 NNL batting leader Ed Stone (.439), and 1940 league leader Lennie Pearson (.389).13 Catching duties were shared by Johnny Hayes and Leon Ruffin. Ruffin was traded in 1939 for catcher Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, who would become manager of the club in 1941.14 The pitching staff was anchored by Leon Day (14-7 in 1939), Jimmie Hill, Terris “The Great” McDuffie, and Bob Evans. Pleasantville, New Jersey’s Max Manning became an Eagle in 1938, and Len Hooker joined the club in 1940.

Manley found one of his best players in Orange, New Jersey, adjacent to Newark. In 1938 Monte Irvin joined the club as a shortstop. A four-sport star in high school, Irvin decided on baseball over a career in football. With shortstop in the capable hands of Willie Wells, Irvin was moved to the outfield, and alternated between there and the infield throughout his Eagles career. He hit .324 lifetime for the Eagles, and went on to a Hall of Fame career with the New York Giants in the National League from 1949 through 1956.15

EFFA MANLEY, WORLD WAR II, NEWARK, AND ITS EAGLES

By 1941, the Eagles were firmly established in black Newark. Attendance rose to an average of 2,696 per game, but Sunday games averaged 4,293.16 In 2009, writer Peter Genovese, in the Star Ledger, stated that “Sunday games were quite the event. They started at 2 PM to allow churchgoers time to reach the ballpark. Fans came dressed in the Sunday best – women with fashionable flowery hats, men in jackets and ties.”17 Genovese added that at Ruppert Stadium in 1939, “admission was 85 cents for box seats, 65 cents for grandstand seats and 40 cents for bleachers. … A local band performed the national anthem before each game and played between innings. Jocko Maxwell, often called the first African-American sportscaster, was the Eagles PA announcer.” Star Ledger columnist Jerry Izenberg called Maxwell the “Eagles’ Lord High Chancellor of Communications.”18 Maxwell was an evening sportscaster on radio stations in Newark and Jersey City and had a strong local following while also writing for the Newark Afro-American. He frequently coordinated Eagles public-relations activities with Effa Manley.

When the owners of other Negro National League clubs and Negro league players and fans thought of the Eagles, the first person who came to mind was Effa Manley. It was not known until many years later that the “Queen of the Negro Leagues” was white. She was born in 1897 to a white mother, Bertha Ford Brooks, who was married to an African-American and lived in a black neighborhood in Philadelphia. During the marriage, Brooks had an affair with a white man, and Effa was their daughter. According to columnist Amy Ellis Nutt in the Star Ledger, “Blond and hazel-eyed, Effa grew up in a black neighborhood, played with black children and for all intents and purposes was treated as being black. In fact, being black was exactly what she thought she was.”19 Effa lived in a black world, traveled in black high society, championed black causes, and, chief among all, became a team owner of epic proportions in a black man’s world.

Before the term “marketing” was fashionable, Effa was doing just that. She became the Eagles’ best public-relations person through her relationships with the press, Newark’s black community, her volunteerism and her tireless charitable efforts. She raised funds for the Booker T. Washington Community Hospital, of which Effa stated, “This hospital is the only one in the state offering an opportunity for colored physicians and nurses to get hospital training. This is a civic responsibility.”20 She promoted fundraising for the NAACP at Eagles games, organized and bought equipment and uniforms for a black youth baseball club, the Newark Cubs, and started a “knothole gang” organization for black kids to attend Eagles games.21 As the Eagles’ business manager, she did everything from making sure the uniforms were clean to scheduling games and organizing the team’s off-field staff and planned entertainment at Ruppert Stadium. Effa was also responsible for making sure that her players were provided for. Paychecks were always on time (a rarity in the Negro leagues) and Effa was the first to provide an air-conditioned bus for team travel during the grueling 150-game schedule, which included many single-game stops. She was the face of the franchise, and her adept management in a tight financial environment was so renowned that in 2006 she became the first and as of 2019 the only woman to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1940 Newark’s black population was nearly 46,000. Their contribution to the World War II industrial effort increased the economic status of the black community as black war production jobs increased from 7,990 in 1940 to 27,000 in 1945.22 Effa Manley’s volunteerism during the war had a positive influence on the growing image of Newark’s black patriotism. She was awarded four annual service stripes as a local warden for the Newark Defense Council. She volunteered for the wartime Office of Price Administration, making decisions on food and gasoline rations for the Price Control Board in Newark. She organized bus trips of black entertainers to travel to Fort Dix to entertain black troops.23 The war had negative effects on baseball in general, as players, black and white, left for the service. Travel restrictions made scheduling difficult, particularly for the Negro leagues, as clubs relied on revenue from their numerous barnstorming exhibition games to help supplement their regular league income. Yet, there was also a positive effect for the Eagles, as black Newarkers used some of their increased war income to seek entertainment options, helping attendance at Eagles games. By 1943 the Eagles were making a profit for the first time.24

As the Eagles grew in popularity, they became a major presence in the Newark black experience. Max Manning was once quoted as saying, “The Eagles were to [black] Newark what the Dodgers were to Brooklyn.”25 Newark’s white mayors, realizing the impact of this community, never missed an Eagles Opening Day. Black celebrities like boxing champion Joe Louis and singer-actress Lena Horne threw out first pitches. The now-demolished Grand Hotel in downtown Newark was the place where Eagles players gathered after games to rub elbows with black high society. Activist, author, and poet Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), in his Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, explained, “At the Grand Hotel, the ballplayers and slick people could meet. … [The Eagles were] legitimate black heroes … pure love … in the laughter and noise and colors and easy hot dogs, there was something of us celebrating ourselves … in the flying around the bases and sliding and home runs and arguments and triumphs there was more of ourselves in celebration than we were normally ever permitted. It was ours.”26

In 1942 Abe Manley found another jewel on the fields of New Jersey – Paterson’s Larry Doby. A second baseman, Doby was one of the best athletes who ever attended Paterson Eastside High School. Like Monte Irvin, Doby was a multisport athlete but eventually chose to concentrate on baseball.27 As World War II ended, important players like Doby, Leon Day, Max Manning, and Monte Irvin began returning from the service, setting the stage for the greatest season ever of Newark Eagles baseball.

THE CHAMPIONSHIP 1946 SEASON

With World War II over, the Eagles and the Negro leagues settled back to business in 1946, but there was a glaring change in the plight of the black ballplayer that caused both joy for players yet consternation for team management. Branch Rickey’s signing of Jackie Robinson of the Negro American League’s Kansas City Monarchs to a minor-league contract with the white Brooklyn Dodgers was an affirmation of changing attitudes toward blacks. Besides the contributions that blacks made to the war effort at home, many also served in the military. Although still in segregated units, they nevertheless fought side by side with their white counterparts to defeat the Axis powers. The question immediately surfaced: If blacks could fight for the country in war, why couldn’t they play major-league baseball? The answer was obvious, but only Branch Rickey had the courage to address the issue and the wisdom to pick Jackie Robinson because of the challenges that Rickey knew he would face. Rickey signed other blacks for the 1946 season, among them another of Abe Manley’s young players found in New Jersey. Pitcher Don Newcombe of Elizabeth, at age 19, won eight games against four losses for the 1945 Eagles, and was depended upon to anchor the Eagles pitching staff for 1946 and hopefully for years to come.28 Even though happy to see Newcombe get a chance in white baseball, Effa Manley was quick to realize how the signing of Negro league players without compensation to their clubs was a concern for the future. She “expressed elation” for Newcombe, but also said, “What will become of colored baseball leagues if players are picked out by major league owners without consulting the team management? … If Rickey wanted to employ a player from a major league chain, I believe he would first negotiate with the player’s club. … I believe the same courtesy is warranted where a colored league is concerned.”29 She would confront Rickey directly over this issue in the future, and her fears for the long-term viability of her business were genuine.

The 1946 season opened impressively for the Eagles. On May 5, with 8,500 fans in attendance at Ruppert Stadium, pitcher Leon Day no-hit the Philadelphia Stars, 2-0. Day walked one batter, and two others reached base on errors by shortstop Billy Felder.30 The team started the season with a 5-5 record, causing Abe Manley and manager Biz Mackey to make a crucial change. In early June they obtained third baseman Andrew “Pat” Patterson from Philadelphia, and moved Monte Irvin from the outfield to shortstop. This move enabled Bob Harvey to play the outfield on a regular basis.31 The infield defense tightened up and the batting order strengthened. Larry Doby and Irvin were a dependable double-play combination. Besides Patterson at third, Lennie Pearson played first base. Joining Harvey in the outfield were Jimmy Wilkes and Johnny Davis. Leon Ruffin and Biz Mackey shared the catching duties. Leon Day was joined on the strong pitching staff by Max Manning, Rufus Lewis, and Len Hooker.32 The Eagles were locked and loaded.

Black fans, while keeping one eye on the daily exploits of Jackie Robinson for the Triple-A Montreal Royals, were noticing a new resolve by the Negro league players. Up to 1946, Negro baseball was marked by a relaxed looseness. Robinson’s signing changed that. Effa Manley, in a letter to Dan Parker of the New York Mirror in mid-July, wrote that “Negro ballplayers are taking the work seriously for the first time. Up to now their work has been a lot of fun. Now they all think they have a chance to enter White Major League baseball, and that is the thing they would love to do.”33

The 1946 Eagles steamrolled through the Negro National League, with a first-half record of 25-9 and an equally impressive second half of 22-7. They batted .304 as a team. Monte Irvin led the league with a .395 average. Larry Doby batted .348, Pat Patterson .337, Johnny Davis .335, and Lennie Pearson .300. On the mound, Max Manning finished the season at 12-1, Leon Day won 11 while losing 4, and rookie-of-the-year Rufus Lewis was 9-1.34

The Kansas City Monarchs won the pennant of the Negro American League. Led by the legendary pitcher Satchel Paige, their formidable lineup included league batting champion Buck O’Neil (.350), home-run leader Willard Brown (13),35 and Hank Thompson, who would play with Monte Irvin on the New York Giants from 1949 through 1956. The Negro World Series promised to be a good one, and in order to help maximize revenue and profits, Game One was scheduled for New York’s Polo Grounds and Game Five at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, with all other games scheduled for the team’s home parks. Nearly 19,500 were in the Polo Grounds on September 17 to see the Eagles lose to Paige, 2-1. The series moved to Ruppert Stadium on September 19. To mark the occasion, Effa Manley spent nearly $700 to outfit the Eagles in new white home uniforms. Nearly 10,000 attended to see Joe Louis throw out the first pitch and Max Manning defeat the Monarchs, 7-4.36 After splitting Games Three and Four in Kansas City, the Eagles were defeated in Chicago and returned to Ruppert Stadium behind three games to two, and in danger of elimination.

Game Six did not begin well for the Eagles as the Monarchs scored five runs in the first inning off Leon Day. Len Hooker relieved Day and stopped the Monarchs. Monte Irvin led the Eagles with four hits, including two home runs, to help defeat the Monarchs, 9-7, forcing a deciding seventh game.37 In Game Seven, Rufus Lewis scattered eight hits and outpitched Ford Smith to defeat the Monarchs, 3-2. Key RBIs by Monte Irvin and Johnny Davis led the Eagles.38

Effa and Abe Manley had their long-sought-after championship. The club drew over 120,000 fans to Ruppert Stadium in 1946 and recorded a profit of $25,000.39 The Eagles were revered in black Newark – they were swinging away in Newark’s heyday. The future looked bright for both the Eagles and Newark. Or so it seemed.

THE QUICK DEMISE OF THE NEWARK EAGLES

Effa Manley had an unwitting part in sowing the seeds of the Newark Eagles’ destruction. In 1942 she took on the honorable cause of integrating white baseball. She joined over 70 prominent blacks, social and labor leaders, and politicians in the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (CIO) Citizen’s Committee to End Jim Crow in Baseball. She proposed the Negro leagues sending the finest player they had, one who could perform at the highest level while withstanding the pressure, to the major leagues. Branch Rickey, who became her adversary, followed her advice with the signing of Jackie Robinson.40 More black players signed to play in white baseball in 1947. Bill Veeck, owner of the Cleveland Indians of the American League, signed Larry Doby away from the Eagles. After receiving no compensation for Don Newcombe, Effa Manley received $15,000 from Veeck for Doby, who played his final game in Newark on July 4, 1947. The Eagles fell from first place, losing the pennant to the New York Cubans.41 Monte Irvin was signed by Branch Rickey but relented when Manley threatened legal action. Irvin then signed with the New York Giants in 1948. By then, it did not matter. The Newark Eagles and the Negro National League were essentially put out of business.

Black attendance at Brooklyn Dodgers games increased by 400 percent from 1946 to 1947. Meanwhile, the Eagles’ attendance dipped to 57,000 in 1947 and dropped even more in 1948. The Manleys lost $50,000 during these two seasons. They sold the club and it was moved to Houston for the 1949 season.42 All but three clubs from the Negro National League survived, but the league itself did not. The remaining clubs, including the Houston Eagles, were merged into the Negro American League.

They heyday of the city of Newark was also ending. James Overmyer quoted Newark historian John Cunningham as writing, “After the economic euphoria of the wartime defense industry ended … its aged industrial sections were losing tenants and jobs to areas outside its crowded urban setting, slum housing was still prevalent for the lower classes, and the city’s tax base, from which could come the money to cure some of these ills, had shrunk dramatically.”43 Newark became a city of urban blight. It experienced a tragic week of civil disobedience in 1967. The big retailers left. Ironically, Ruppert Stadium was also demolished in 1967. Since then, Newark has been fighting its way back, with economic progress being gained from downtown redevelopment. It still has a long way to go.

The Star Ledger, in an article remembering the Newark Eagles in 1996, stated, “After 10 years of hard times, the Eagles seemed to be on the way to real economic stability … but, in keeping with the irony that had so often haunted this league, they would be remembered as the team that remained only to turn out the lights on a world that seemed to have reached its finest hour only to find it was also its final hurrah.”44 Jerry Izenberg has been writing sports for the Star Ledger since 1951. Prior to that, he spent much time at Ruppert Stadium, watching the Eagles and the Bears play. In 2006, Izenberg reminisced, “I am thinking … of the Eagles I used to watch in Ruppert Stadium as a young kid … of their 1946 championship season with Larry Doby and Monte Irvin … with Day and Manning … with Biz Mackey and Lennie Pearson. … It was great for this city that has precious little to root for these days. It’s important that the joy of what that team was live on in memory.”45

Notes

1 Bob Golon, No Minor Accomplishment: The Revival of New Jersey Professional Baseball (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press/Rivergate Books, 2008), 10.

2 James M. DiClerico and Barry J. Pavelec, The Jersey Game (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 136-137.

3 Merl F. Kleinknecht, “The Negro Leagues: A Brief History,” in Dick Clark and Larry Lester, eds., The Negro Leagues Book (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 1994), 15.

4 DiClerico, 140-141.

5 Golon, 17, 18.

6 James Overmyer, Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1998), 32.

7 Overmyer, 40.

8 DiClerico, 153.

9 Overmyer, 71.

10 Ibid.

11 Overmyer, 85.

12 Dick Clark and Larry Lester, “Negro Baseball Register,” in The Negro Leagues Book, 240.

13 Ibid.

14 Overmyer, 55-56.

15 Ibid.

16 Overmyer, 106.

17 Peter Genovese, “Where the Eagles Soared: The African-American Newark Baseball Team Was Regarded as a Source of Pride and Identity in Segregated Times,” Star Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), February 13, 2009: 27.

18 Jerry Izenberg, “Unfortunately, the Hall Missed This Call,” Star Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), July 17, 2008: 23.

19 Amy Ellis Nutt, “Baseball’s ‘Black’ Trailblazer: The Peculiar Story of Effa Manley and Her Negro League Team,” Star Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), February 22, 2008: 8.

20 Ibid.

21 Overmyer, 60-61.

22 Overmyer, 176.

23 Overmyer, 167-169.

24 Overmyer, 177.

25 Overmyer, 58.

26 Genovese, 27.

27 DiClerico, 151.

28 “Organized Baseball Records,” in The Negro Leagues Book, 327.

29 “Eagles Boss Raps Rickey Method of Signing Hurler,” New Jersey Afro-American, April 20, 1946.

30 Jim Ryall, “Fireworks at Eagles Game,” Newark Evening News, May 6, 1946.

31 Overmyer, 200.

32 DiClerico, 156.

33 Effa Manley, letter to Dan Parker, July 19, 1946.

34 John Robinson, “New Jersey Spotlight,” New Jersey Afro-American, September 14, 1946.

35 “Seasonal Leaders,” in The Negro Leagues Book, 238-239.

36 Overmyer, 204.

37 “Eagle Homers Knot Series,” Newark Evening News, September 28, 1946.

38 “Eagles Hit in Clutches,” Newark Evening News, September 30, 1946.

39 Overmyer, 203

40 Overmyer, 216.

41 Overmyer, 239.

42 Golon, 19.

43 Overmyer, 210.

44 “Newark Baseball’s Finest Hour: The Eagles’ Championship in 1946,” Star Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), May 19, 1996.

45 Jerry Izenberg, “Baseball’s Chance to Right a Wrong,” Star Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), February 26, 2006.