Monte Irvin

High school

Orange High School

Pro team(s)

Newark Eagles, New York Giants, Chicago Cubs

Hall of Fame

⭐ National Baseball Hall of Fame

Monford Merrill Irvin was born on February 25, 1919, in Haleburg, Alabama, and moved with his family to Orange, New Jersey, at age eight. He attended Orange High School, where he earned 16 varsity letters in four sports — baseball, basketball, football, and track — and was one of the most celebrated prep athletes in New Jersey history. He joined the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League in 1937 at age 18, then served in the U.S. Army during World War II (1943–1945), losing what should have been his prime years to both segregation and the war. The New York Giants signed him in 1949 when he was already 30 years old. What Irvin accomplished in the time he had was extraordinary: in 1951, he led the National League with 121 RBI, batted .312, and was a central figure on the Giants team that staged the most famous comeback in baseball history — overcoming a 13½-game deficit to the Brooklyn Dodgers in August to force a playoff, culminating in Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Irvin was arguably the most skilled player to come out of the Negro Leagues, and the consensus view among Negro League veterans was that, had the color barrier fallen sooner, he would have been among the all-time greats. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1973. He died January 11, 2016. Grew up in Orange, New Jersey.