These Men Changed Baseball: Willard Brown

Though I realize for series continuity I should be writing about Chuck Harmon right now, I want to step back just a little bit.  Willard Brown deserved to be more than a footnote in the posts on Hank Thompson and the role of Canada.  Brown was a future Hall of Famer who bombed in his brief tenure with the St. Louis Browns in 1947, a team he missed integrating by a matter of days.  What is the story of Willard Brown?

Brown was born in Shreveport, LA on June 26, 1915. Some push that birthdate up to 1911. From there, he moved to nearby Monroe to play for the Monroe Monarchs in 1934. In 1935, he moved up to the big club, joining the Kansas City Monarchs. He would play for them off and on through 1948. His statistics are incomplete, as are all Negro League stats, but sources credit him with 7 home run titles in the Negro American League and per 162-game averages of .348 batting average, .565 slugging percentage, 23 home runs, and 16 triples. Brown, nicknamed “Home Run” by Josh Gibson, was a noted combination of power and speed, a point I’ll return to in a minute. Because of these skills, Brown’s contract was purchased from the Monarchs, along with teammate Hank Thompson, by the St. Louis Browns.

Brown debuted on July 19, 1947, playing for the Southern-most team in the major leagues at the time, two days after Thompson. The results were not pretty. Brown played in 21 games, hitting .179 without a walk, posting .269 slugging percentage. In his third to last game, though, Brown pinch hit against future Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser, ripping Newhouser for an inside-the-park home run so reminiscent of his Negro League combination of power and speed. This was the first home run hit by an African-American in the American League. For the moment, let’s leave the story there. It is a nice cap to the career of a player who do to racism could debut until he was already 32-years-old, well past his baseball prime. The Browns would cut him in late August, and he would return to the Monarchs for his last hurrah in 1948.

Now we need to flesh out this story. For starters, note the players the Browns used to integrate. Thompson was a hot-head, a trait that would eventually lead to his death. Brown a player that teammates regularly accused of not hustling. If you wanted to pick players to embody negative stereotypes about African-Americans, you could not find a better matched pair. Was this the Browns’ intent? I have no proof, but I do know that these players stick out in a list of early integrators like Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, and Sam Jethroe. At the least, the Browns were poor talent evaluators, a point which dovetails well with their history of lousy teams full of white players. I am inclined to blame incompetence rather than malice, but I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Second, the story of Brown’s home run has a little more detail that I have left out. Brown, sitting on the bench as he was, was not prepared to hit that day. He had to borrow a bat from a white player in order to hit, and he proceeded to use this borrowed bat to hit the home run. Hollywood story, right? Well, when he got back to the dugout, the story goes, the white player, the immortal Jeff Heath, an outfielder in direct competition with both Thompson and Brown for playing time, took the bat back and broke it because it had been used by a black man.

In the end, Brown faded away. He died of Alzheimer’s while living in extreme poverty in Houston, TX on August 8, 1996. Heath died at age 60 and was commemorated (scroll down for the obituary) for his early accomplishments and long-time role in baseball in the Seattle area. Fortunately, the story has a posthumous bright spot. A committee led by his former manager Buck O’Neil secured Brown’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. Late though it was, he finally received a modicum of recognition for his accomplishments.

The Canadian Role in Integrating Major League Baseball

As I write more and more about the players who integrated major league baseball from 1947 to 1959, I am constantly reminded how important Canada was in this story. For starters, I would encourage you to go through the stories of the players that I have already told. Canada pops up time and time again. More than anything else, I would like to catalog some of those stories. These players deserve to be remembered, as I’ve said repeatedly, but so do the people who enabled their success. Given a sport in which every major league team was in another country, I find it remarkable just important Canada was to enabling their success.

Jackie Robinson signed his first contract with the white major leagues when he signed with the Montreal Royals. Integration of a white team, for the first time since 1884, happened in Canada first. Branch Rickey wanted Robinson to go to Canada first to smooth the transition from the Negro Leagues to the white major leagues.

Sam Jethroe, after getting overlooked by the Red Sox, broke in with Montreal. After his career in the majors ended in 1952, Jethroe spent his
last five seasons playing for Toronto of the International League.

After poor initial numbers in the minors (with Farnham and St. Hyacinthe, both Canadian teams), Bob Trice got his big break in Ottawa. In Ottawa, he followed in the footsteps of future Hall of Famer Willard Brown, the second African-American to play for the St. Louis Browns and teamed up with former Negro League star and Indians first baseman Luke Easter. From there he was brought up by the Athletics.

Tom Alston broke into organized ball with Jacksonville, then he moved onto the Saskatchewan Rockets. From there he was spotted by the San Diego Padres, his home before joining the St. Louis Cardinals.

This accounts for 4 of the initial 10 players to integrate major league baseball teams. In addition to this group, other whose followed their lead spent significant time in Canada. Dan Bankhead, the first African-American pitcher in the major leagues, spent minor league time in Montreal, as did future Hall of Famer Roy Campanella and first Cy Young winner Don Newcombe. Sam Bankhead, Dan’s brother, was too old to play in the majors and instead became the first black manager of a white team when he managed the Farnham Pirates of the Provincial League. Even Pirates integrator Curt Roberts wandered through Montreal after his major league career ended.

Canada was critical to major league integration. A disproportionate number of early black baseball players cycled through one of only a handful of minor league teams in Canada. Given that Canada did not have the racial history of the United States, the country was invaluable in the process of adjusting black players to the reality of playing for mostly white teams in the heavily racist major leagues. We should certainly remember the players who gave so much in order to play in the major leagues, but the country that enabled their great successes is also deserving of our gratitude.

These Men Changed Baseball: Tom Alston

Moving from a small second baseman liked Curt Roberts, it is time to look at a very large first baseman named Tom Alston whose career is gutted by segregation and health issues.  Most of the later integrators, minus Elston Howard, fall in the large category of prospects that did not pan out.  Alston, though, was much too old to be a prospect, and his career is for that reason abbreviated.

Alston was born on January 31, 1926 in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1944, he joined the Navy then went to North Carolina A&T, an historically black college. He graduated in 1951, then he went to play for the Jacksonville Eagles, a black minor league team. From there he was signed by the Saskatchewan Rockets, then the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League. In the offseason after the 1953 season, new St. Louis Cardinals owner Gussie Busch pushed for the team to be integrated, leading to an offseason trade for Alston (The trade included Dick Sisler, son of Hall of Famer George Sisler). Alston, then, would come up on April 13, 1954 as the player who integrated the Cardinals. By this time he was already 28. Now, many players have come up late in life, especially players like Alston who had short careers. Why do I think segregation is an important part of this story? Alston’s size.

Tom Alston was 6′ 5″, 210 lbs. Consider those numbers in the context of the 1950′s. He was a massive man for his day and age, and that alone would have qualified any white player as a top prospect. Alston, instead, got lost in the shuffle by white organizations who spent little time scouting black players. Alston slid through college and was picked by Jacksonville because the Negro Leagues had died by 1951. In this sort of world, we lose the first 3-5 years of his career.

Alston never adjusted well to the majors, for reasons we will discuss below. On April 13, 1954, Alston played first base and hit 6th for the Cardinals. He committed an error on his very first play, dropping a foul pop hit by the Cubs leadoff hitter. That sort of mental error is I think emblematic of the problems that beset his entire career. In his rookie year, he hit .246 with 4 home runs, a far cry from his last year with the Padres when he hit just below .300 with 20 home runs. From that point on, Alston bounced between the majors and the minors, always doing better in AAA then failing in his call-ups. He played in 25 more games before bowing out of professional baseball in 1957. He died on December 30, 1993 in Winston-Salem and is buried in Greensboro.

What went wrong for this player who consistently put up such good minor league numbers? Neurasthenia. Neurasthenia is mental disorder triggered by stress or anxiety, and it is not primarily hereditary. The environment of discrimination in which Alston lived, then, is an important part is his eventual mental collapse. Alston was swamped by fatigue, began hearing voices, attempted suicide, and was institutionalized on multiple occasions after his career ended.

What else did Alston do? It is easy to dwell on the negative, so let’s remember the positive in closing. He is another part in the Canadian legacy of MLB integration, playing in Canada before he reached the big leagues. David Halberstam, in October 1964, credits him with an important role in acculturating Curt Flood to professional baseball in Flood’s first season with the Cardinals, 1957. He was also critical in Bob Gibson’s first year in the minors, with Omaha in 1957. Alston, at the end of his career, held his mental problems in check long enough to help the first great African-Americans to play for the Cardinals. Flood and Gibson? Not a bad legacy for Tom Alston.

These Men Changed Baseball: Curt Roberts

Returning to our long-paused series, it is time to turn to Curt Roberts, integrator of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Roberts fits into a trend that is hidden in the players already discussed.  Certain teams jumped into integration:  first the Dodgers, then the Indians, then the Giants and Braves.  Everyone else trailed this group.  Though the Browns were actually the third team to integrate, they quickly pulled back, and their team suffered accordingly.  These four, though, did more than just integrate for themselves.  The Dodgers, for example, signed Sam Jethroe originally, before trading him to the Braves where he would integrate that team.  Similarly, the Braves jumped on a young amateur second baseman named Curt Roberts, later trading him to the Pirates.  Roberts, then, and the Pirates as an organization, followed in the footsteps of those teams that had already blazed the trail.

Roberts was born on August 16, 1929 in Pineland, Texas. Like most African-American baseball players from that part of the world, his career started with the Kansas City Monarchs. He came up in 1947 and played with the team through the 1950 season. After that year, he was signed by the Braves and assigned to Denver of the Western League. He was traded to the Pirates in 1952 and broke in with the big club in 1954. On April 13, 1954, the Pirates broke in their new second basemen against the still lily-white Phillies. In his first at-bat, Roberts tripled off future Hall-of-Famer Robin Roberts. For the game he went 1-for-3. It was the highlight of his major league career.

From that game on, Roberts appears to be a fairly standard poor hitting middle infielder. In his rookie year, he hit .232 with 1 home run and a 62 OPS+. In the next two seasons, he played in 37 total games, being replaced in 1956 by a new rookie second baseman named Bill Mazeroski. After the year, the Pirates traded him to the New York Yankees’ farm team, the Kansas City A’s. The A’s sent him to the minors, then traded him to the big league club after the 1957 season. He could not break in with the Yankees either, and he disappeared to the Pacific Coast League for the rest of his career. He died at age 40, getting hit by a car.

Why does Roberts matter? Three reasons: First, he came first. Surely other people could have integrated the Pirates, but they did not. Roberts did, and he deserves to be remembered for that point alone. Second, Roberts, like Bob Trice with the A’s, helped proved that marginal major leaguers come in all shapes and colors. The superstars were important in showing that blacks could play with whites; marginal players were important in showing that blacks were not supermen. In the end integration only works when two groups of humans come together. Roberts inability to hit, when paired with the spectacular talent of fellow second baseman Jackie Robinson, gave African-Americans the full range of humanity. Third, Roberts was a fluent Spanish speaker. This, in and of itself, seems unremarkable. But in 1955, the Pirates were breaking in a rookie right fielder from Puerto Rico named Roberto Clemente. Roberts was considered instrumental in his transition to the major leagues.

Put all of that last paragraph together and you have a player deserving of remembrance. Sadly, Roberts, like the other non-Hall of Famers of the integrators has been forgotten. Hopefully, people can notice this series and remember the important trail-blazing done by Curt Roberts.

These Men Changed Baseball: A Recap

On February 1st, we in the United States begin Black History Month. In honor of the occasion, I would like to remember one of the many contributions that African Americans have made to major league baseball by recapping the series on the players who integrated the major leagues from 1947-1959.

First, the list.

Jackie Robinson

Larry Doby

Hank Thompson

Monte Irvin

Sam Jethroe

Minnie Minoso

Bob Trice

Ernie Banks

Their are more to come. Only one great player is still to come, Elston Howard, but a number of fascinating players are still to come. Look forward to a post coming soon on Curt Roberts, the second baseman who integrated the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1954. Until then, celebrate this under-reported moment in black history by remembering the men who fundamentally changed America’s pastime.

These Men Changed Baseball: Ernie Banks

Unlike the A’s Bob Trice, the Chicago Cubs integrated with one of the greatest players in baseball history.  The Cubs were in one of their standard down spells, a team that had shown no promise since making the World Series in 1945.  They were about to make one of their rare good decisions of the era because they had just begun a relationship with a Negro League manager they would hire in 1955.  That manager was Buck O’Neil of the Kansas City Monarchs.

In 1950, the Monarchs had signed a shortstop from Dallas by the name of Ernie Banks. The Negro Leagues were in the process of collapsing. The last Negro League World Series was played in 1948, followed soon thereafter by the collapse of the Negro National League. The Negro American League survived for another 3 seasons as little more than another minor league. Given the slow progress of integration, teams like the Kansas City Monarchs were still able to attract occasional top talent, most notably Banks. Banks was scouted by future Hall of Famer Cool Papa Bell and joined the team in 1950. He then spent two years in the military before rejoining the Monarchs in 1953. In 1953, the Cubs signed Banks directly as a 22-year-old top prospect and brought him directly to the majors. On September 17th, Banks became the first African-American to play for the Chicago Cubs, replacing previous Cubs shortstop Roy Smalley, Sr. (father of the immortal Roy Smalley Jr.) Banks went 0 for 3 with a walk in his first game, but he would soon get it all figured out. For the season, Banks played in 10 games, hitting .314 with 2 home runs in 39 plate appearances. He would just get better.

In 1954, Banks would come in second in Rookie of the Year balloting, losing easily to Wally Moon of the Cardinals. Banks peaked from 1958-60, winning consecutive MVP’s in 1958 and 1959 and leading the league in home runs in 1958 and 1960. He led the league in RBIs in 1958 and 1959, along with slugging percentage and total bases in 1958. He won a Gold Glove in 1960 in his last year as a full-time shortstop. By 1961 his knees had given out, and the bus moved him to first base where he would play the most games for his career (1,259 at first to 1,125 at short). He would finish his career with 512 home runs and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977 with 83.8% of the vote. (Consider that: More than 16% of Hall of Fame voters did not consider Banks worthy of Hall of Fame induction.)

Banks is unusual in the list of integrators for several reasons. He does not really lose any major league time to segregation. (Apparently, there is some question as to his birth year. He could have been 6 years older than he claimed, which would change this paragraph dramatically.) The two years prior to his debut, he was in the military because of the Korean War. His biggest obstacle, from a playing standpoint, was knee problems that kept him from being probably the second best shortstop in major league history. He still faced racism, though, as a white scout for the White Sox refused to consider him for their opening at short. This led to his signing with the Cubs. (The White Sox found their own Hall of Fame shortstop in 1956 with Luis Aparicio. Given the White Sox integrated with Cuban-born Minnie Minoso, it appears they were much more comfortable moving into Latin America than into the African-American community.) Despite these barriers, Banks is easily one of the best players ever to play the game. Given his sunny personality, it is easy to forget the challenges he must have overcome. Nevertheless, we should remember Banks not just for his on-field greatness but also for his off-field historical significance.

These Men Changed Baseball: Bob Trice

With Bob Trice, our series on the players who integrated baseball takes a distinct turn. We still have superstars left, in particular Ernie Banks and Elston Howard, but the number declines. The team that moved quickly in integrating skimmed the best players out of the Negro Leagues. The names: Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Monte Irvin, along with other great players who did not happen to be the first on their teams: Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron; prove the point. The Negro Leagues led to a great infusion of talent into the major leagues. Teams that moved later, though, were often stuck with a slightly lower level of player. In this category, we meet Bob Trice of the Philadelphia A’s.

Bob Trice was born in 1926 in Newton, GA. He moved to Weirton, WV while a child and graduated high school there in 1945. He briefly served in the Navy at the end of World War 2, then he moved into the Negro Leagues with the Homestead Grays, pitching with them from 1949-51. He was signed by the A’s and after poor minor league numbers, ended up in Ottawa of the International League. There, in 1953, Trice had his one great season. He went 21-10, with a 3.10 ERA, and he earned a September call up. On September 10, Trice became the first black ballplayer to play for the Athletics franchise. Trice went 8 innings, giving up 5 runs, and striking out 2. Trice lost to Don Larsen and the St. Louis Browns, 5-2. For the season, he was 2-1 with an ERA north of 5.

In 1954, the A’s brought him back. Trice went 7-8. with an ERA still over 5, and 22 strikeouts in 119 innings. He pitched briefly in 1955, after the A’s moved to Kansas City. In 4 games, he had an ERA of 9 and 2 strikeouts in 10 innings. He headed back to the minors and pitched poorly, until he left the realm of organized baseball. After baseball, he went back to Weirton, where he worked for the Weirton Steel Corporation until his death in 1988 at age 62.

Trice was a marginal pitcher. What does that mean? First, it means that he was one of the best baseball players to have ever lived. You do not make the major leagues unless that is true. Second, it means that Trice was like many a thousand of professional baseball players who flamed out in the major leagues. Trice defined replacement level, as he was a good AAA pitcher who could not translate those skills into the big leagues. Nevertheless, Trice mattered. He brought integration to the A’s. He was followed soon thereafter by the more successful Vic Power, whom the A’s had acquired from the Yankees organization. Power would make 4 All Star teams and win 7 Gold Gloves at first base in 12 seasons. Trice paved the way, even providing Power his essential black roommate in his first two seasons. Though he does not measure up to the great players who integrated the Dodgers or the Giants, Trice is worthy of remembrance. I would love to see the Oakland A’s retire Trice’s #23 in remembrance of his contribution and of the players who could not play for the A’s during the first 52 segregated seasons of Athletics baseball.

These Men Changed Baseball: Minnie Minoso

Today, we get to the last of the integrators with a serious case for the Hall of Fame just on his own merits that is not already in.  When you factor in the adversity these players faced or the amount of time lost to racism, this case for Hall of Fame induction might expand.  Minnie Minoso, though, has a legitimate case for the Hall of Fame, even before you factor in years spent in the Negro Leagues because of segregation. Let us talk, then, about one of the greatest Chicago White Sox ever to play the game.

For starters, Minoso was born at some point in the 1920′s in Cuba. The exact date is uncertain. While he played, his birth year was given at 1922. Starting in the early 1990′s his birth year has been given as 1925. He is known to have given both in interviews. The currently accepted year is 1925, which adjusts perception of how much major league time he lost. Regardless, in 1945, at the age of 20 or 23, Minoso broke in with the New York Cubans of the Negro National League as their third baseman. He would lead the team to the Negro World Series title in 1947, beating out Sam Jethroe‘s Cleveland Buckeyes. He was a dominant leadoff hitter, and he was signed by the Cleveland Indians in 1948. He slipped into the majors for 9 games in 1949, before disappearing back to the minors. He spent two seasons in San Diego, playing very well while he bounced between third base and the outfield. Early in the 1951 season, he was sent to the Chicago White Sox as part of a three-team, 7-player trade. He would debut for Chicago on May 1, 1951, and he would become the first black player to play for Chicago. On the day, Chicago would be destroyed by the Yankees 9-3, but history was still made.

In 1951, Minoso exploded onto the scene in Chicago. For his rookie year, he was somewhere between 25 and 28. Given his batting line, an older age makes a bit more sense. He hit .326 with a .422 OBP and .500 SLG. He led the league in triples, stolen bases, and HBP, establishing the pattern of his career. He would be elected to the All Star team for the first of 9 times, come in 4th in the MVP voting, yet lose the Rookie of the Year to Gil McDougald by 2 votes. Minoso would not cool off for 10 years. He led the American League in triples 3 times, stolen bases 3 times, and HBP 10 times. He would also lead the league in hits, doubles, and total bases once each. For his career, Minoso put up an OPS+ of 130, and he was worth 52.7 WAR, good for 150th among all position players. Given the lost years to the Negro Leagues, he looks like a fairly easy choice for the Hall of Fame. That has not been the case. So what happened to Minnie Minoso?

First, Minoso retired with a .298 batting average. If it is 2 points higher, he might have squeaked in. If he retired after the 1962 season, instead of 1964, he would have retired hitting .303. Second, his record is tarnished by his last three seasons. He hit .196, .229, and .226 in 1962, 1963, and 1964. Minoso was through, either at age 36 or 39, but he tried to hold on a bit longer. Third, his serial returns to play in the 1970′s and 1980′s added a bit of sideshow image to his legacy. That of course does not explain why he was not elected prior to his 1976 return. Here the quirks of the Hall of Fame come into play. Minoso first appeared on the ballot in 1969, receiving only 6 votes. The 1969 ballot elected Stan Musial and Roy Campanella, and it also held 14 other future Hall of Famers. It was easy for a player as good as Minoso to get lost. For what it’s worth, Minoso was 6th on the ballot in career OPS+, behind only Musial, Johnny Mize, Charlie Keller, Ralph Kiner, and Tommy Henrich. After 1969, Minoso disappeared until 1986 when he would receive 20% of the vote. From there he would linger on the Veterans’ Committe ballot through 1999, when he had dropped to 14% of the vote. He was considered for Negro League induction in 2005 but did not make it.

The White Sox recognized him by retiring his number in 1983. The Hall of Fame has not. Given lost years and the segregation he had to daily overcome, I think Minoso should go into the Hall of Fame. Without time in the Negro Leagues, he would be a borderline case, sitting just outside the Hall with comparable players like Carl Furillo, Ken Griffey, Sr., and Cy Williams. None of those players lost time to the color of their skin. He did not make the 10-player, post-1943 ballot used in the 2009 election. Unfortunately, for Minoso to enter the Hall of Fame, the Veterans’ Committee would have to show a willingness to elect players. That, it appears, they steadfastly will not do.

These Men Changed Baseball: Sam Jethroe

Sam Jethroe has one of the most interesting careers on this list.  He played only four seasons, winning two stolen base titles, coming in second once, and then being completely done.  Want to look at the career of a player destroyed by segregation?  Look at Jethroe.  So who had this unusual career?  Let’s take a look at Sam Jethroe in a little more depth.

Jethroe was born in 1918 in East St. Louis, making him a full year older than Jackie Robinson or Monte Irvin. Jethroe came up briefly with the Indianapolis ABC’s in 1938, then disappeared into the world of semi-pro baseball. He returned to the Negro Leagues in 1942 with the Cincinnati/Cleveland Buckeyes. He had a physical deferment, and thus he did not lose any years to military service. He played center field, winning a pair of batting titles and becoming the Negro Leagues dominant base stealer. He led the Buckeyes to a Negro League World Series win in 1945 and a loss in 1947. In 1948, he impressed the Dodgers enough that they signed him to a minor league contract with their Montreal affiliate. Jethroe lit up the minors, but the 1949 Dodgers already had a budding star in center named Duke Snider. The Dodgers traded Jethroe to the Boston Braves for the immortal Al Epperly, Damon Phillips, and Don Thompson. He debuted on April 18, 1950, at the age of 32, breaking the color barrier in Boston. He was an instant star.

In his rookie year, Jethroe hit .273, with 18 homers and 35 stolen bases. Caught stealing numbers are only available for his next two seasons, when he stole them at an 82% clip, good for one of the best percentages ever. He cruised to the Rookie of the Year, his age is the most relevant part in predicting his performance going forward. After this year at age 32, he followed it up with another excellent year at 33, hitting .280 with 18 homers and 35 stolen bases, leading the league in steals for the second time. Then the wheels came off at 34. In 1952, Jethroe still stole 29 bases, good for second in the league, but his home runs fell to 13 and his average to .232. He spent 1953 in the minors in Toledo, at which point the Braves traded him to Pittsburgh for Danny O’Connell, who had finished 3rd in the ROY voting to Jethroe in 1950. He narrowly missed integrating the Pirates. Curt Roberts would integrate the team on April 13th, while Jethroe played his last two MLB games on the 14th and 15th. In his last play, he pinch hit for the pitcher and hit into a fielder’s choice. He was sent down to Toronto the next day, where he played 5 more seasons.

After leaving baseball, Jethroe moved to Erie, PA, where he owned a bar. He died in 2001, completely forgotten. What might have been? Consider this: On April 16, 1945, the Boston Red Sox invited three Negro League players for a tryout, Jackie Robinson, Marvin Williams, and Jethroe. But Hall of Fame owner Tom Yawkey kept his lily-white roster until 1959, after every other team in baseball had integrated. Robinson would go on to the Hall of Fame, and Jethroe would wait and become the oldest Rookie of the Year in baseball history. In 1997, he won a long-running fight with major league baseball, getting pensions for negro league players that had, due to segregation, been unable to play long enough to qualify by the normal pension system. To quote Sam Jethroe, “over the years, I gave baseball a lot more than it gave me.”

These Men Changed Baseball: Monte Irvin

Moving to the co-integrator of the New York Giants, we move to a different sort of ballplayer than all who have gone before. Irvin fits into the mold of players like Satchel Paige, that is, players who reached the major leagues at such an advanced age that they have unnaturally short careers. Nevertheless, Irvin went on to the Hall of Fame for some combination of his Negro League and major league play. So who was he?

Irvin was born in 1919 in Alabama, one month after Jackie Robinson. He moved to New Jersey while young, and he came up with the Newark Eagles in 1938, at age 19. He played 5 seasons for Newark, then he served 3 years in the military. In 1946 he returned to the Eagles, playing there through 1948. He was approached by Branch Rickey in 1945 as a possible first black major leaguer, but the position went to Robinson. The two years Irvin lost mattered, as he came up at age 30 instead of 28. He played his first game on July 8, 1949, pinch-hitting against Don Newcombe and the Dodgers in a 4-3 loss.

Irvin only played 36 games his rookie season, hitting a mere .224. After lighting up the minors in early 1950, he was called up for good. (Check his 1950 minor league numbers. He hit .510 with a 1.216 slugging percentage in 51 at-bats!) Irvin then became one of the best players in baseball for the next 5 years, his age 31-35 seasons. He stuck up OPS+ of 131, 147, 120, 141, and 108 from 1950 to 1954. He finished 3rd in the MVP voting in 1951, trailing Roy Campanella and Stan Musial. He followed up the regular season by hitting .458 in the World Series in a loss to the Yankees. While doing that, he, Hank Thompson, and Willie Mays formed the first all-black outfield in MLB history. He missed most of the 1952 season due to injuries. By the end of 1954, age caught up to Irvin.

In 1955, he shuffled between the majors and minors, playing in only 51 big league games while hitting .253. In the offseason, he was picked up by the Cubs and spent his last season in Chicago, at age 37. For his career, Irvin played 8 seasons hitting .293 with 99 home runs and 443 RBI’s. He led the league in RBI’s in 1951, was twice in the top 5 in OBP, twice in the top 10 in batting average, and once in the top 10 in home runs. Irvin did all of this despite not debuting before his 30th birthday. He was a 5-time Negro League All Star and made the MLB All Star game once.

Irvin is a great might-have-been. Irvin was a fantastic player, no matter where he had to play. He could have been a great MLB player if he had the chance. Debuting at 19 is not unheard of in the major leagues, so it is likely that Irvin lost 8 full seasons to segregation, excluding his military service but including most of his prime. Regardless, Mays considered Irvin an essential mentor, and in 1951 he was the best player on a Giants team that went to the World Series. Unfortunately Irvin is largely forgotten. He did not last as long as Robinson or Larry Doby, he did not break barriers in the same way as Robinson, and he did not dominate his league like Mays or Ernie Banks. We should not forget Monte Irvin, though. He was crucial in paving the way for the younger players, like Mays, Banks, and Aaron, who would move on to superstardom. Happily, he was honored with the Hall of Fame in 1973, yet his number has not been retired by the Giants. For that there is no excuse.