Monte Morte

Monte Irvin, one of the best baseball players ever raised in New Jersey, has died at the age of 96. With speed, a cannon for an arm and the ability to hit for power and average as a star for the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues, most of his contemporaries assumed Irvin was going to be the first player to make the leap to the major leagues. Unfortunately, in 1945 when Dodgers GM Branch Rickey decided to right one of the century’s great wrongs, Irvin was just out of the Army and not ready for high-level competition. Rickey tried to sign him in 1948, but he was under contract and Rickey wasn’t willing to pay for the privilege, so the Eagles ended up selling his contract to the New York Giants. The move would prove to be a rare misstep by Rickey. Irvin made his debut in 1949 and was in the majors for good in 1950, but at age 30, had lost his prime years in buses, small towns and barnstorming tours in the Negro Leagues. The 1951 season turned out to be momentous, as Irvin hit .312 with 24 HRs and a league-leading 121 RBI, helping to lead the Giants in their historic comeback to overtake the Dodgers and win the pennant. He then hit .458 in the World Series, stealing home in Game 1, as he watched the New York Yankees win another title. More importantly, he took a 20-year old rookie from Alabama under his wing, and Willie Mays regarded him as a mentor and second father, instrumental to his own Hall of Fame career. That season would be Irvin’s high-water mark, as age and injuries limited Irvin’s efficacy, although he did help the Giants to their upset win in the 1954 World Series. He became the first black executive when he joined the commissioner’s office in 1968 – a role that put him in Atlanta on April 8, 1974 as the only representative from MLB because prick bastard Bowie Kuhn had something better to do than witness Hank Aaron break the all-time HR record. Irvin was named to a Hall of Fame commission intended to open the Hall to Negro league stars in 1971. Coincidentally, that same commission elected him to the Hall in 1973.