Photo by Tony Avelar: Associated Press
In case you haven’t heard, Houston resident and Larry Dierker SABR Chapter member Monte Irvin picked up a nice little honor last weekend on the west coast. The also Baseball Hall of Fame inductee from 1973 had another much deserved honor come his way on Saturday, June 26, 2010 at AT&T Park in San Francisco when the home town Giants retired his number 20 from the days Irvin used it during the franchise’s long tenure at the Polo Grounds in New York. Monte Irvin never played for the Giants in San Francisco, In fact, he retired as a player after the 1956 season – and that ws a full two years before the Giants played their first game in San Francisco.
The Giants’ list of retired numbers includes a classy ad tasteful blend of players from both their terms in New York and San Francisco. The addition of Monte Irvin in 2010 just made it even classier, but he’s in fine company among the other New York men: pitcher Christy Mathewson and manager John McGraw are both there from the pre-numbered jersey era as Giants of greatest honor. They are accompanied in that special company of former New York Giants by first baseman Bill Terry (#3), outfielder Mel Ott (#4), and pitcher Carl Hubbell (#11). Monte Irvin (#20) now takes his rightful place among the former New Yorkers. Willie Mays (#24 – Did I really need to tell you that one?) is the only honored former Giant who played with the club in both New York and San Francisco, but great play on the bay would produce other from 1958 forward in San Francisco. The SF members include pitcher Juan Marichal (#27), first baseman Orlando Cepeda (#30), pitcher Gaylord Perry (#36), and first baseman Willie McCovey (#44). Jackie Robinson (#42), of course, is there as the universally retired number by all major league teams.
The Giants group of honored former players all share this fact in common: They are each, one and all together, inducted members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The cream doesn’t rise any higher in this bottle. Cooperstown is the jar of baseball greatness – or should be. And Monte Irvin most certainly is. Great then. Great now. Great forever.
Our Houston SABR chapter has been twice privileged to host Monte Irvin for Minute Maid Park board room meetings and wonderful lectures and discussions of Monte Irvin’s life and times in baseball. At age 91, Monte talks freely, informatively, and often humorously about the old days of Negro League baseball, about how he might have become the man to have broken the color line, and about the time that a young Fidel Castro tried out as a pitcher to play for his Cuban winter league club.
“Castro didn’t make it. He was too wild and we had to let him go,” Irvin told us at his last Houston SABR appearance. “”Of course, then he (Castro) went off to the mountains from there and became a dictator. … If we had only known that he wanted to be a dictator, we could have kept him with us and made him into an umpire.”
At his number retirement ceremony in San Francisco, Monte expressed his appreciation in the strongest terms of gratitude. ” Now I feel my life in baseball is complete,” Irvin told the sellout crowd prior to the Giants game against the visiting Boston Red Sox.
At 91, Monte Irvin is alert and upbeat about baseball and life in general. As an optimist of the first order, Monte showed his metal to the nth degree when we tried to throw a SABR birthday party for him on his natal day last February 25th. “Let’s do it next year,” Monte pled. “I just want to take it easy this time around.”
God Bless you, Monte Irvin. And thank you for being an important member of our Houston baseball community.
Tags: Baseball, culture, History, Monte Irvin
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