Blast from the Past: Monte Irvin's 1951 Season

Apologies for fewer posts.  Historical pieces and offseason reviews take a bit longer to research and write up than Game Wraps.  We all know the story of the 1951 Giants.  We know about Willie Mays callup from the minor leagues.  How he lit a spark to a team that trailed the Dodgers by 9 games.  We know about Bobby Thomson's home run.  I've always been fascinated by the other players on that team and how really good they were.  The MVP by fWAR of the 1951 Giants and ranked #6 in MLB was Monte Irvin.

Monte Irvin was a star for the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League.  He was a 5-tool SS/CF up until WW II in which he served for 3 years in the European Theatre with a segregated engineering unit.  His ears were damaged in the war which caused loss of balance but he was still able to play, albeit with a reduction in tools and performance.  After Jackie Robinson's tremendous success, Dodgers GM Branch Rickey was looking for other black players and wanted to sign Monte Irvin.  Eagles business manager, Effa Manley, was by now wise to the economic impact of losing star players to the major leagues.  She demanded compensation from Rickey and threatened to sue if she didn't get it.  Rickey backed off.  The Giants eventually paid $5000 for Irvin's contract in 1949.

Irvin's MLB career got off to a slow start as he batted just .224 in 93 PA in 1949.  He was 30 years old.  He progressed to a slash line of .299/.392/.497 in 432 PA in 1950 for an fWAR of 3.2.  1951 was, by far, his best MLB season.  Irvin did not just serve as a mentor for Willie Mays.  He was the star of the 1951 team in his own right.  Playing both corner OF positions and 1B, he fashioned an outstanding batting line of .312/.415/.514, 19 2B, 11 3B, 24 HR, 12 SB, 94 R, 121 RBI, 13.5 BB%, 6.7 K%, 657 PA, 6.4 fWAR.  Just look at that!  I would call that Vottoesque for a comp with a current player.  he finished third in the NL MVP balloting behind Roy Campanella and Stan Musial.  The Giants went on to lose the World Series to the Yankees in 6 games but Monte Irvin had a great series with 11 hits, a .458 BA and a steal of home in Game 1.

A fractured ankle suffered on a slide into 3B in spring training limited Irvin to 46 games in 1952.  He played better in 1953 for a bad Giants team without Willie Mays who was serving the second year of army duty.  Mays was back in 1954 and Irvin contributed a .262 BA with 19 HR's as the Giants won the World Series in 4 games against the Cleveland Indians.

Irvin's final playing season was 1956 with the Cubs.  He went on to have a distinguished post-playing career in various roles for MLB.  The Giants retired his #20 in 2010.  He joined other Giants living Hall of Famers in throwing out the first pitch for the 2010 World Series.  He passed away in 2016 at the age of 96.

*Biographical facts were taken from Monte Irvin's SABR biography and Stats are from Fangraphs.