The Pecan Park Eagle

Monte Irvin (left) and Larry Doby handled shortstop and 2nd base for the 1946 Negro League champion Newark Eagles before their big roles in the integration of Major League Baseball.

I just love this photo of Monte Irvin and Larry Doby as teammates on the 1946 Newark Eagles, when they played as middle infielders, no less, on a championship team. Both went on to major roles in the early days of Major League Baseball integration – and both eventually won enshrinement in the Ball of Fame at Cooperstown as outfielders, not infielders.

Larry Doby played for the Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, and Detroit Tigers. He became  the first black player in the American League by breaking in with the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, about three  months after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in the National League as a Brooklyn Dodger. Irvin, who previously had been the primary candidate for the groundbreaking role that eventually passed to Jackie Robinson, played his first game for the New York Giants on July 8, 1949, arriving in time to be a major cog in the incredible wheel version of the Giants that came from way back in AUgust to nip the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1951 NL pennant with Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard round the world.”

Monte Irvin batted .293 lifetime and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973. Larry Doby hit .283 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998. There is no question in my mind that both men received deserved credit also for their earlier successes in the Negro Leagues. The two Eagle buddies also would later face off against each other when their New York Giants and Cleveland Indians met in one of the most surprising outcomes in championship series history. The 1954 Indians set all kinds of records for winning that year, but their resume didn’t help them against the heart-tenacious Giants, who swept the Series in four games. This was the year of the famous “catch” by Willie Mays in deepest center field at the Polo Grounds.

Speaking of iconic photos, “The Catch” by Mays gave us one of the most famous plays in baseball history.

The Catch, 1954.

Remember? …. I thought you would.