Monford  Merrill "Monte" Irvin

 Hall Of Fame Induction:  1973

Of course, Branch Rickey lifted Jackie Robinson of the Negro ball and made him the first, and it turned out fine.”

Monte Irvin was the seventh of ten children born to farmer Cupid Irvin and the former Mary Eliza Henderson.  When Irvin was eight, the family of six boys and four girls migrated to Orange, NJ where Irvin lettered in four sports, earning all-state honors for East Orange High School and setting a state record for the javelin throw.  An all-state football player with speed and agility, he declined a football scholarship to the University of Michigan.  Instead, Irvin joined future teammate Max Manning at Lincoln University in Oxford, PA, where he majored in political science for two years.

In 1937, at the age of 18, Irvin joined the Newark Eagles under the assumed name of Jimmy Nelson, to protect his amateur collegiate status.  After two years under the management of Willie Wells, Irvin matured into a fine shortstop earning his first berth to the 1941 East All-Star team.  (After serving in the military, he also played in Negro League all-star games in 1946, 1947 and 1948).

Irvin was a terrific hitter, batting .422 in 1940 and leading the Negro National League the next year with a .396 average.  Irvin recalls one of the highlights of his career:  “In 1941, on a road trip with the (Homestead) Grays we beat them three games in one day.  We beat (Terris) McDuffie and (Roy) Welmaker in Columbus (Ohio) and defeated Ray Brown in Dayton that night to complete the sweep.”

He had signed a contract in 1941 for $165 a month.  When Irvin asked for a $25 raise, owner Effa Manley rejected his offer, sending Monte packing his bat and glove for Mexico.  In 68 games, Irvin slammed 30 homeruns and hit .398 to win the Mexican league triple crown.  Irvin was at the top of his game when Uncle Sam called for him to serve in the U.S. Army for the next three years, and this possibly preventing him from being the first African American to break baseball’s apartheid system.

“Monte was our best young ballplayer at the time,” remembered James “Cool Papa” Bell.  “he could do everything.  You see, we wanted men who could go there and hit the ball over the fence, and Monte could do that.  He could hit that long ball, he had a great arm, he could field, he could run.  Yes, he could do everything.  It’s not that Jackie Robinson wasn’t a good ballplayer; but we wanted Monte because we knew what he could do.  But after Monte Irvin went to the Army and came back, he was sick (inner ear problem), and then they passed him up and looked for somebody else.”

Although Irvin never regained the athletic form of his pre-service days, he earned the 1945-46 Puerto Rican Most Valuable Player Award.  In 1946, he returned to his homeland and joined forces with Larry Doby, Leon Day, and Lennie Pearson under the management of Biz Mackey to lead the Eagles to a Negro National League pennant.

He hit .389 for the season and was instrumental in beating the Kansas City Monarchs in a seven game series with three round-trippers and hitting a flashy .462.

Irvin played two more seasons with Newark despite Brooklyn Dodger executive Branch Rickey’s many attempts to sign him.  After the 1948-49 season in Cuba, the New York Giants paid the Newark Eagles $5,000 for Irvin’s services.  Assigned to the Jersey City club of the International League, he proceeded to terrorize pitchers with a .373 batting average.

In the heat of a pennant race, the Giants called for Irvin in mid-July.  Irvin failed to stick with the parent club, but immediately proved the Giants wrong, hitting .510 with 10 homers in only 18 games after being sent back down, and the team recalled him.

Irvin played in 764 major league games and became the first product of the Negro Leagues to lead the majors in RBIs, with 121 in 1951.  He teamed that year with Hank Thompson and Willie Mays to form major league baseball’s first all-black outfield.  The ’51 season was the pinnacle of his major league career.  He hit .312 with 24 homeruns and finished third in the MVP voting, while leading the team to the World Series.  Although the Giants lost to the Yankees in six games, Irvin hit .458 and flashed some of the old speed with a steal of home plate against Allie Reynolds.

Tragedy struck the next year when Irvin broke his ankle in spring training.  After four months of rehabilitation, he hit .310, but his speed had vanished.  In 1953, he was hitting .320 when he re-injured the ankle, and he never regained his stellar form, batting only .262 during the Giants World Championship season of 1954.  In 1955, after a .253 start in his first 51 games, he was demoted to Minneapolis, where he hit .352 in 75 games.  After the season, the Giants traded Irvin to the Chicago Cubs.  At the age of 39, Irvin’s contract was sold to Chicago’s Los Angeles Angels farm club.  He finished his major league career with a .293 average, 97 doubles, 99 homeruns, and 443 runs scored.  Irvin added a dazzling .394 average to his list of credits for two World Series performances.

After the 1956 season, the cerebral Monte traded his bat for a pen.  He scouted for the New York Mets in 1967-68, and later spent 6 years (1968-1984) as a public relations specialist for the commissioner’s office.  Today, Irvin serves on the Veterans’ Committee of the Hall of Fame and actively campaigns for recognition of baseball’s FORGOTTEN pioneers.

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