Monte Irvin : biography
Monford Merrill "Monte" Irvin (born February 25, 1919) 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).
Personal
Irvin now lives in a retirement community in Houston, TX and is still very active in baseball and the community. He is involved with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and always looking to spread the word about Jackie Robinson and the role he played in moving baseball forward.
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.Hogan, p. 381. 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:Hogan, pp. 390–391.
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. |