By Marty Appel<\/p>\n
The death of Monte Irvin in January, a month shy of his 97th birthday, robbed\u00a0baseball of one of the finest gentleman to ever play the game, and robbed historians of\u00a0the go-to source for anything about the Negro Leagues.<\/p>\n
He was the last significant player from the Negro Leagues, and to the delight of\u00a0countless writers and broadcasters, he remained alert and vital until the end, always\u00a0ready to help researchers out. (When Hank Aaron played for the Indianapolis Clowns,\u00a0the Negro Leagues were already in free fall, and Aaron never really experienced the\u00a0league when it was vital).<\/p>\n
When I wrote a magazine piece last year on Martin Dihigo, the Hall of Famer\u00a0from Cuba, there was the obligatory call to Monte, and from it came the sentence, \u201cHe\u00a0always walked tall and proud, and when he came into a room, all eyes turned towards\u00a0him.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Monte could provide that statistics couldn\u2019t, and that\u2019s why he\u2019ll be\u00a0missed. That, and his decency, humanity and basic goodness.<\/p>\n
His birthday, February 25, was the same as my wife\u2019s. She once pointed out to\u00a0him that it was also shared with the Beatle, George Harrison. \u201cGood to know,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cNow when someone asks me who my favorite Beatle was, I have an answer!\u201d<\/p>\n
Monte didn\u2019t reach the Major Leagues until he was 30. He still had some good\u00a0seasons left – especially 1951, the \u201cBobby Thomson Season\u201d when he was third in MVP\u00a0voting, led the league in RBIs, and hit .458 in the World Series with a steal of home.<\/p>\n
But really, most baseball fans never saw him at his peak, the early 1940s, when he\u00a0starred in the Negro Leagues.<\/p>\n
Once I asked him what he was like back then. Remember, he was a very\u00a0modest and self-effacing person, not prone to bragging. He was thoughtful, educated,\u00a0wise, clear-headed and polite. I said, \u201cMonte, who would you compare yourself with\u00a0when you were in your early \u201820s? Willie Stargell? George Foster? Yastrzemski?\u201d And\u00a0without much hesitation he looked at me and said, \u201cOh, DiMaggio.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019d obviously thought about it.<\/p>\n
It was quite a statement. I\u2019ve never forgotten it, because what he was saying\u00a0was that the American public was flat out robbed of seeing someone of DiMaggio\u2019s\u00a0equal. All these years later, one can only look at that and say, \u201cshame on the people\u00a0running baseball\u201d for depriving us of such a talent.<\/p>\n
Monte, a 16-letterman in high school, (where all his games were integrated),\u00a0college educated, a war veteran, someone who got along with everyone, could well have\u00a0been \u201cThe First,\u201d the honor that went to Jackie Robinson. That had much to do with\u00a0Branch Rickey\u2019s lack of interest in compensating owner Effa Manley of the Newark\u00a0Eagles for Monte\u2019s contract, since he could sign Robinson for free.<\/p>\n
Finally in 1949, he and Hank Thompson became the first African-American\u00a0players to play for the New York Giants. They debuted the same day.<\/p>\n
Monte played just eight seasons in the Majors and hit 99 home runs. That used\u00a0to put him on the list of most home runs by letter of the alphabet, a chart that would\u00a0occasionally appear in print. A was Aaron, B was Banks, C was Colavito and so on.\u00a0Monte was the only one not in triple figures. It stood out.<\/p>\n
We were colleagues at the Commissioner\u2019s Office when slugger Pete Incaviglia\u00a0came along. Nobody rooted for him to reach 100 more than Monte. \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing\u00a0to see that 99 next to my name,\u201d he\u2019d say. Incaviglia wound up with 206. Monte was\u00a0pleased.<\/p>\n
Negro League records, sketchy though they are, show that he played nine\u00a0seasons, mostly with Newark, and hit .354. But he played a lot of games in winter ball,\u00a0in Mexico, in Cuba, in the Dominican – and, he said, a lot of in-season exhibition games\u00a0with the Eagles for which no records were kept, sometimes because no official scorer\u00a0was on hand. And he would tell great stories, often over lunch at Kenny\u2019s on Lexington\u00a0Avenue, about pulling into a town where a teammate might know a terrific player who\u00a0happened to be in the local penitentiary. The team would go to the warden and\u00a0negotiate a \u201cday pass\u201d in exchange for tickets, so that the inmate might play in the game.\u00a0Great laughter would go with this story. I\u2019m sure it was true.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t care for the 1976 film, \u201cThe Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor\u00a0Kings,\u201d which was said to depict Negro League baseball through a traveling, Harlem\u00a0Globetrotters-like team. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like that at all,\u201d he reflected. \u201cWe had fun, but we\u00a0weren\u2019t clownish, and there was no Globetrotter-like team competing with us. We\u00a0played serious baseball. No movie has ever shown that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After working for Rheingold Breweries following his retirement, Monte was hired\u00a0in a public relations capacity by Commissioner William Eckert on the urging of his\u00a0spokesman Joe Reichler, the former AP columnist. He stayed on for the full run of\u00a0Bowie Kuhn\u2019s commissionership, and retired with him in 1984.<\/p>\n
He did a lot of speaking engagements on behalf of Kuhn, and Kuhn turned to him\u00a0when the idea of allowing Negro Leaguers into the Hall of Fame first came up. He was\u00a0appointed to the voting committee, and was eventually voted in himself (the committee\u00a0asked him to excuse himself) – but getting Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson elected the\u00a0first two years were major steps for the Hall. Monte\u2019s word counted the most when\u00a0future electees – Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, Judy Johnson, Dihigo, John Henry\u00a0Lloyd and Rube Foster were chosen. All have Monte\u2019s fingerprints on their plaques.<\/p>\n
His most famous moment working for Kuhn came in Atlanta in April of 1974,\u00a0when Kuhn designated him as his representative, to be present when Hank Aaron broke\u00a0Babe Ruth\u2019s lifetime home run record.<\/p>\n
Atlanta fans were furious over Kuhn\u2019s \u201csnub,\u201d but Kuhn saw it as an impossible\u00a0assignment, confined perhaps for a week or more – who knew? – to Braves games until\u00a0the mighty swing came.<\/p>\n
Poor Monte. He and his wife Dee packed for a week and flew to Atlanta on the\u00a0afternoon of the first Braves home game. They checked into the Marriott and headed for\u00a0Fulton County Stadium.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, on his very first swing, Aaron hit the record breaker. Amid the\u00a0chaos that followed, Monte made his way to the field to present Aaron with a plaque.\u00a0Upon being introduced, the fans cascaded Monte with boos, intended of course, to show\u00a0displeasure at Kuhn\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
Aaron laughed and patted Monte on the back. \u201cDon\u2019t let it bother you,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monte made his remarks – quickly – shook Aaron\u2019s hand, and headed for his seat.\u00a0He looked at Dee and said, \u201cI think we can make the 9:30 flight back to Newark!\u201d And\u00a0they made it. His week in Atlanta was five hours. (Dee died in 2008).<\/p>\n
After Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, I asked Monte if he thought\u00a0he would ever see a black President. His answer surprised me. \u201cI did,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u00a0thought we\u2019d have a Jewish president first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Great players leave us all the time, many more famous than Monte Irvin. But for\u00a0all his generosity in providing historians and fans with living history, he will be missed\u00a0beyond measure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a time we were playing in front of the dictator, Trujillo\u2026\u2026..\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monte Irvin By Marty Appel The death of Monte Irvin in January, a month shy of his 97th birthday, robbed\u00a0baseball of one of the finest gentleman to ever play the game, and robbed historians of\u00a0the go-to source for anything about… Continue Reading