Rich Zawadski sent this Monte Irwin APBA card not long after Irwin passed away on January 11th. This card is from his time on the 1946 Newark Eagles, one of his best seasons ever.
1946 was quite a year for Irvin. He hit .375 with six homers and 36 rbis in 152 at-bats for the Newark Eagles.
| Year | Tm | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | Newark | 162 | 152 | 34 | 57 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 36 | 3 | 10 | .375 | .414 | .546 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/25/2016.
Irvin’s card is going to satisfy everyone unless you’re a stickler about his defense at short (SS-7). He is an OF-3 and a 3B-4 though.
But his hit numbers! Yum! His power numbers are 1-4-6-6 and he has three 7s and 15-11. No wonder they called him “Mr Murder”!
Fun numbers: 51-7, 26-14, 42-8
They say Irvin was one of the forgotten greats of his time. But thanks to APBA, I knew of him even as a kid. The 1949 set was one of the first sets I bought. It was his first year in the MLB. He didn’t have a fantastic card for the New York Giants that year but for some reason, I do remember him. Irvin did come back to lead the NL in rbis with 121 in 1952.
RIP Monte Irvin
thanks, Rich.
I was born in 1960, and became a baseball fan circa 1967-68. I was never quite sure, as a kid, what to make of Monte Irvin.
He worked in the late 1960s for the Commissioner’s Office; for some reason, when I was a kid, I always looked askance at ex-players who then worked for MLB. I felt as if they were “hangers-on” who should fend for themselves instead of staying on the gravy train.
So, for that reason, I did not take Irvin “seriously.” He was always mentioned when people recalled the New York Giants, the Polo Grounds, etc., but I never took him seriously.
Now, as an adult, I still find myself wondering what to “make” of him. I know he came to MLB late, when he was 30 years old. I know he was considered a “star” of the Negro Leagues.
But I look at his stats from both the Negro Leagues and MLB, and I do not see a Hall-of-Famer. A very good player at times, but not an HOF-caliber star.
Yet I want to see a Hall-of-Famer when I look at him. After five decades of being a baseball fanatic, I still do not know how I feel about Monte Irvin.
It drives me crazy, on the one hand, but it seems to be one of the things I love about baseball on the other.
Monster Monte, indeed. In an All-Time Great League (A&C, A&B pitchers only, plus ZZ’s)this card (in nearly 800 at bats) has a line like this:
BA SLG OB OPS
.318 .573 .351 .924
The flesh and blood Monte may or may not be a HOF’er but this card can play.
I just noticed this – “But his hit numbers! Yum! His power numbers are 1-4-6-6 and he has three 7s and 15-11. No wonder they called him “Mr Murder”!”
Actually , he has FOUR “7’s” (44, 55, 25, 51)
I wonder why is he a J-4 with 162 plate appearances?