Monte Irvin

Monte Irvin
Irvin in about 1953.
Outfielder
Born: February 25, 1919 (age 92) Haleburg, Alabama
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
July 8, 1949 for the New York Giants
Last MLB appearance
September 30, 1956 for the Chicago Cubs
Career statistics
Batting average	.293
Home runs	99
Runs batted in	443
Teams
Negro leagues Newark Eagles (1938-1942, 1945-1948) Major League Baseball New York Giants (1949-1955) Chicago Cubs (1956) Other Azules de Veracruz (1942) Minor leagues (1949–50, 1955, 1957)
Career highlights and awards
1× All-Star selection (1952) 5× Negro League All-Star selection (1941, 1946-Griffith, 1946-Comiskey, 1947, 1948) World Series champion (1954) Negro League World Series champion (1946) Led NL in RBIs in 1951 with 121 San Francisco Giants #20 retired
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction	1973
Election Method	Negro Leagues Committee

Monford Merrill "Monte" Irvin (born February 25, 1919 in Haleburg, Alabama) is a former left fielder and right-handed batter in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball who played with the Newark Eagles (1938–42, 46-48), New York Giants (1949–55) and Chicago Cubs (1956).

Biography

Although born in Haleburg, Alabama, Irvin grew up in Orange, New Jersey, one of five players who grew up in the Garden State to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In high school, he starred in four sports and set a state record in the javelin throw. Monte Irvin attended Lincoln University and was a star football player.

Irvin was one of the first black players to be signed after baseball's color line was broken by Jackie Robinson in 1947. He fashioned a career of dual excellence both with the Eagles in the Negro leagues, and with the Giants in the National League. After hitting in the Negro leagues for high marks of .422 and .396 (1940–41), Irvin led the Mexican League with a .397 batting average and 20 home runs in 63 games, being rewarded with the Most Valuable Player award. After serving in the military in World War II (1943–45), he returned to the Eagles to lead his team to a league pennant. Irvin won his second batting championship hitting .401, and was instrumental in beating the Kansas City Monarchs in a seven-game Negro League World Series, batting .462 with three home runs. He was a five-time Negro League All-Star (1941, 1946–48, including two games in 1946).

He was approached in 1945 by Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey about being signed for the major leagues, but Irvin felt he was not ready to play at that level so soon after leaving the service. Irvin earned MVP honors in the 1945-46 Puerto Rican Winter League, and after he spent the 1948-49 winter in Cuba, the Giants paid $5,000 for his contract. Assigned to Jersey City (International League), Irvin batted .373. He debuted with the Giants on July 8, 1949 as a pinch-hitter. Back with Jersey City in 1950, he was called up after hitting .510 with 10 HR in 18 games. Irvin batted .299 for the Giants that season, playing first base and the outfield.

In 1951, Irvin sparked the Giants' miraculous comeback to overtake the Dodgers in the pennant race, batting .312 with 24 homers and a league-best 121 runs batted in, en route to the World Series (he went 11-24 for .458). That year Irvin teamed with Hank Thompson and Willie Mays to form the first all-black outfield in the majors. Later, he finished third in the NL's MVP voting. In 1952 he was named to the NL All-Star team.

In his major league career, Irvin batted .293, with 99 home runs, 443 RBI, 366 runs scored, 731 hits, 97 doubles, 31 triples, and 28 stolen bases, with 351 walks for a .383 on base percentage, and 1187 total bases for a .475 slugging average in 764 games played.

After retiring, Irvin worked as a scout for the New York Mets from 1967–68 and later spent 17 years (1968–1984) as a public relations specialist for the commissioner's office under Bowie Kuhn. In this capacity he became the target of scorn—not racial, but because of what the public saw as a double standard. When Commissioner Kuhn, who had ordered the Braves not to bench Hank Aaron in the opening series in Cincinnati at the start of the 1974 season (the Braves wanted Aaron to break the career home run record in Atlanta), sent Irvin to Atlanta in his place, the fans booed Irvin because Kuhn didn't come to Atlanta for the historic event, instead attending a "boosters" event for the Cleveland Indians.

Monte Irvin was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, primarily on the basis of his play in the Negro leagues. Today, he serves on the Veterans Committee of the Hall of Fame and actively campaigns for recognition of deserving Negro league veterans.

On June 26, 2010, the San Francisco Giants officially retired his number 20 uniform. He was joined by fellow Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry and Orlando Cepeda in the pre-game ceremony.^[1] He later joined those same Giants Hall of Famers in throwing out the ceremonial first pitch of Game 1 of 2010 World Series.^[2]

Career statistics

Negro leagues

The first official statistics for the Negro leagues were compiled as part of a statistical study sponsored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and supervised by Larry Lester and Dick Clark, in which a research team collected statistics from thousands of boxscores of league-sanctioned games.^[3] The first results from this study were the statistics for Negro league Hall of Famers elected prior to 2006, which were published in Shades of Glory by Lawrence D. Hogan. These statistics include the official Negro league statistics for Monte Irvin:

Year	Team	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	BA	SLG
1938	Newark	2	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000
1939	Newark	21	76	11	22	2	1	2	11	0	7	.289	.421
1940	Newark	35	131	26	46	9	4	3	36	2	12	.351	.550
1941	Newark	34	126	28	50	11	1	5	36	7	10	.397	.619
1942	Newark	4	18	7	11	3	1	1	11	0	0	.611	1.056
1945	Newark	1	5	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	.200	.200
1946	Newark - c	40	149	34	57	8	2	6	36	3	16	.383	.584
1947	Newark	13	48	13	16	1	0	4	10	1	8	.333	.604
1948	Newark	9	30	6	7	0	0	2	5	2	4	.233	.433
Total	9 seasons	159	587	125	210	34	9	23	146	15	57	.358	.564
c = pennant and Negro League World Series championship.

Source:^[4]

Mexican League

Year

Team

G

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

SB

BB

BA

SLG

1942

Veracruz

63

237

74

94

17

6

20*

79

11

50

.397*

.772

* - led league.

Source:^[5]

Major League Baseball

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube

Minor League Baseball

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference (Minors)

See also

• First black MLB players by team and date
• List of Major League Baseball RBI champions

Notes

References

• Clark, Dick; Lester, Larry (1994), The Negro Leagues Book, Cleveland, Ohio: Society for American Baseball Research
• Hogan, Lawrence D. (2006), Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball, Washington DC: National Geographic, ISBN 079225306X
• Holway, John B. (2001), The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History, Fern Park, FL: Hastings House Publishers, ISBN 0803820070
• Riley, James A. (1994), The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, New York: Carroll & Graf, ISBN 0786709596
• Treto Cisneros, Pedro (2002), The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics, 1937–2001, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, ISBN 0786413786

External links

• Monte Irvin at the Baseball Hall of Fame
• St. Petersburg Times - Profile
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• cmgww.com - Official website
• legacymemorybank.org - Monte Irvin interview on Martin Luther King, Jr.