An Interview With Monte Irvin

The Negro League great, now 79, discusses Satchel Paige, the East-West Game, and why it’s so hard for ex-Negro Leaguers to make the Hall of Fame

Interviewed by Eric Enders
March 4, 2000 

Monte Irvin was born in 1919 in rural Alabama and grew up in New Jersey. After attending Lincoln College in Oxford, PA, he joined the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League in 1937. For a decade he was one of the brightest stars in black baseball, combining a high batting average with medium power and the ability to play shortstop, third base, and the outfield. In 1949 he was signed by the New York Giants. He enjoyed several stellar seasons in the majors, including 1951 when he batted .312 with 24 homers and 112 RBI, leading the Giants to the pennant and finishing third in MVP balloting. After his retirement he served as a special assistant to commissioner Bowie Kuhn for 17 years, and also served on the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee for two decades. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, and currently resides in Homosassa, Florida.

You played in a lot of East-West Games over the years. Does any particular one stand out in your memory?

The first one I played in was 1941, and Satchel Paige pitched. He was a big drawing card, you know. He proved that day why everybody wanted to see him. Our first baseman, the Newark Eagles’ first baseman, was the first batter up. His name was Len Pearson. So I told him I felt sorry for him, and he said, “Why?” I said, “Well, since you’re the first batter, you know Satchel’s gonna want to strike you out. But you go on up and do your best.” And then he said, “Well, don’t remind me, would you?” So he went up and took three strikes and sat down. I said, “How’d he look?” and he said, “I don’t know. I didn’t see it, he was throwing so hard.”

Was that the first time you had seen Paige pitch?

No, I had seen him for the first time in 1938, and I had seen him in Puerto Rico in 1940, in the winter league down there.

Tell me a little bit about the crowds at the East-West games.

It was a happy time. It was an occasion for people to get dressed up in their best clothes and hats and go out on the town. It was a happy, happy day for the players, too. Our unforms were all pressed and clean, and we’d shine our shoes just a little bit shinier than we had all season.

I understand a lot of famous entertainers attended the games.

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was a big fan, and he’d be there. And whoever happened to be performing in Chicago would always come out and want to see the game. The game started around 2:00, and the stands would fill with people coming to Chicago from as far away as Texas, Mississippi, Alabama. They’d start to come in on Friday, so they’d spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They’d leave either late Sunday or early Monday to go back home. They’d make it a big excursion.

What did the players do after the game?

The Grand Hotel was headquarters, and after the game everybody would go back to the Grand Hotel and have dinner, or go listen to some music. I remember Count Basie’s band, Fletcher Henderson... just all kinds of people, whoever was big on the Jazz scene.

What sort of effect did Jackie Robinson’s signing have on the East-West game?

It lost its importance to a degree. Now everybody is wanting to see the major league All Star game, because now you’ve got some of the better Negro League players in it— Robinson, Doby, Campanella, guys like that. So it lost its glitter and glamour, because now some of your best guys are playing in the majors and there’s not that much interest in the Negro Leagues anymore. When Jackie came in, that wonderful period was over, and it was great while it lasted, but now you’ve got to look ahead to the major league All-Star Game.

By the late 1940s the major leagues were beginning to integrate, but most of the great black players were still playing in the Negro Leagues. Did major league scouts ever go to the East-West Game to look for players?

Oh, yeah, sure. The stands would be filled with scouts, and they knew that these fellows had a lot of talent. What happened, though, was that they would have gotten the cream of the crop of Negro League players if they had started ten years sooner. They would’ve gotten Willie Wells, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, Martín Dihigo, Satchel Paige, Ray Dandridge, and right on down the line. They would have gotten the best ones. Most of those guys were over the hill when Jackie came in, or really set in their careers in Mexico and so on, and they didn’t want to take a chance, because they were so old, of losing what they had. So they decided to stay where they were rather than take a chance and take less money to start out in the majors. So it’s just too bad that that was the situation, because they would have really seen some super players, you know. Cool Papa Bell, and on down the line. But all these fellows were over the hill and getting ready to end their careers.

One player who played in many of those East-West games was Artie Wilson. Tell me a little bit about him.

He was very popular. Played great shortstop, was a great fielder, could run. And he hit pretty well in the Negro League. He and another fellow named Piper Davis... Well, at that time Piper was playing second and Artie was playing short for the Birmingham Black Barons. They had a good team, and they featured a double play combination which was a thing of beauty to watch. And again, you know, they were old [when integration began]. Of course, Artie got a short chance with the Giants later on. He just couldn’t quite cut the mustard with the major league pitching. No matter how they pitched him, he hit the ball to left field. And a left-handed hitter hitting the ball to left field, that wasn’t too...

Do you think the Giants gave him enough of a chance?

No, they didn’t. They thought he was going to be a big star like he was in the Negro Leagues, but he wasn’t, so then he went on to the Pacific Coast League. Piper never did get a chance. He was signed by Boston, I think, but he never got a chance either. So he went to the Pacific Coast League too and played out there for a long time.

Your old teammate, Ray Dandridge, was another great player who was signed by the Giants but never quite got a chance. Why was that?

Well, he was supposed to have been old, number one. Number two, he was a great drawing card out there in Minneapolis, and since he was old, they figured they’d let him stay out there and help that franchise rather than bring him to the Giants. He became very bitter about that. He thought that he’d die happy if he could play just one game in the major leagues at the Polo Grounds. He never got the chance, and he was bitter about that up until the time he passed away.

Did you guys get a bonus or any extra money for playing in the East-West game?

No, all we got was $50 expenses. No rings, no watches, no photos, no anything.

But somebody must have made a lot of money from those games.

Yeah, the owners made a lot of money. Yeah, they made a lot of money.

Did the players ever get together and try to ask for a cut of that?

Yeah, they did. In fact, one year they went on strike and wouldn’t play. In ‘40, I think, they wouldn’t play. Instead of fifty dollars they demanded a hundred, and the owners promised to pay them— and did, because they wouldn’t go out on the field unless they got more money. So it was a strike, and it was very effective.

Obviously the East-West game was a big event in the African-American community, but how much attention did it get among white people? Did they even know it existed?

No, no. You know, you might get a mention, but that was about it. But you’d always quite get a few white fans that would come out and see the guys play. They had their favorites, and so on.

Tell me a little bit about Willie Wells.

Very smart, and just a super player. Fast, and he was noted more for his fielding than anything else. They used to call him “The Devil.” They’d say, don’t hit the ball to The Devil, you’d better hit the ball someplace else. That’s what he was noted for. 

Were you there the day he supposedly invented the batting helmet?

Yeah, yeah. He showed up with a miner’s helmet because, you know, they used to throw at him. He got hit a few times, so to protect himself that’s what he came up with. I don’t know where he got that from, but he found it someplace. Maybe he knew a miner.

Do you remember what year that was?

Oh, it was early. Around ‘38 someplace.

Why do you think it took him so long to get into the Hall of Fame?

Well, nobody knew anything about him, you know. He didn’t get the publicity that Satchel Paige and Josh and Buck did. He was noted more for his fielding than his hitting, even though he was a good hitter. They gave all the attention to the superstars, and he was a superstar. But even though he was a superstar, he really didn’t get the publicity. You know, like Ozzie Smith and McGwire, who do you publicize? You publicize McGwire, because he’s a big first baseman who can hit the ball out of the ballpark. He’d get more publicity than Ozzie Smith. So it was that kind of thing.

About the Negro Leagues Committee you were on in the 1970s: How come it disbanded when it did, before electing the Willie Wellses and Bullet Rogans and those kind of guys?

Well, you know, we thought we had gone as far as we could go. So all the committee members decided that, well, we’d done a pretty good job, maybe nine or ten guys, so... But then, later on, the thinking changed. But the Veterans Committee took over, and our committee was disbanded.

Was it that the committee thought those guys didn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, or just that they couldn’t get enough votes?

We didn’t think they could get enough votes.

Who wasn’t voting for them?

I’m talking about the owners and the people from the Hall of Fame, we just didn’t think they’d let us continue. So we ended it ourselves— on a happy note.

Interview Transcript © 2000 by Eric E. Enders

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