I was the seventh child born to Cupid Irvin and Mary Eliza Henderson in Haleburg, Alabama, on February 25, 1919.

I have just a few memories of Haleburg. I remember on Saturdays, when the farmers finished working, they would gather in the field and mark off a diamond and play baseball. These were spirited and highly competitive games. After the game, there would be lemonade, hamburgers, barbecued chicken, and so on, all of that would be served.

When I was seven years old, my family that included six boys and four girls migrated to Orange, New Jersey. There at the Park Avenue School, I joined the soccer team. I played soccer so well that my coach asked me to come out for the baseball team in the spring. I did and liked it very much. In fifth and sixth grade, I could throw so hard that the coach made me the pitcher when we had really tough games. For other games, I was the shortstop.

During that time we played softball in a playground. Later on, there was church league baseball. I played all the time, everywhere, every sport, wherever I could.

I was seriously interested in music then. I’m talking about Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Cab Calloway. We used to go down to the theater and watch those guys perform. I wanted to become a saxophone player. So I asked my mother if she would loan me $5 so I could go down to the music store and pay down on the saxophone.

She said, “Five dollars is a lot of money. Are you sure you will work hard enough to pay me back?”

I said, “I will.”

My mother gave me $5, and I started out for the music store. But before I got to the music store, I passed a Davegas Sporting Goods store, and in the window was this glove, a brown leather Spalding catcher’s mitt, and it was only $5. So rather than paying down on the saxophone, I went into the store and bought the catcher’s mitt outright.

I bought it so I could catch my brother, who I thought had a fastball like Satchel Paige. It turned out to be a good investment. Catching my brother in the long driveway of our house, I learned how to catch. That is really how I got started in baseball.

I graduated from grade school and got into high school where I became involved with a local team called the Orange Triangle that came out of a very popular athletic club. The team had some really great athletes; some of them were older guys who were out working in the world. Our team was all black, but we played white local teams, Essex County teams. To get money for balls and bats and to pay the umpire, we passed the hat. There were some blacks in the audience, but most were white people who came regularly. They really enjoyed the games.

That New Jersey area I grew up in is known for its great athletes. One of the greatest that New Jersey ever produced was Jesse Miller. He was the local hero and my baseball manager, the fellow who taught me how to play baseball. He motivated me and remained my hero until he died at the age of ninety in 1999.

But my heroes growing up in the early years were not the black players — it was the white major leaguers like the Gashouse Gang. They got all the publicity. The Negro Leagues did not get much publicity in the daily white papers. There would be just a line here or there saying who won or who lost. The Afro-American, the Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender would have more information — box scores, stories. But you would have to wait a week for that sometimes.

I aspired to play in the Negro Leagues. In those days I could have had no thought, no dream of ever playing in the major leagues. I remember in 1936 I was playing so well (I hit .666 in high school playing shortstop, first base, playing everywhere) that one of our teachers who was a friend of Horace Stoneham, the owner of the New York Giants, told him, “We’ve got a kid here who you should take a look at.”

Sure enough they did. They took a look. But that was all they did. I learned later that a report came back: “Monte Irvin is everything you said he is, but the time is not yet right for him. There is no way we can sign him for the New York Giants. We will have to pass because we would not be able to get the other owners to go along.”

That was the way of things. During my high school years I played on integrated teams. I did not feel prejudice outright, but there was that undercurrent. They wouldn’t let more than two blacks play at one time on a high school football team. That was the procedure throughout the whole state of New Jersey.

The state back then had great athletic programs in the grade schools, in the high school. Some of the greatest athletes came out of the New Jersey area. Years later, I was honored as the greatest all-around athlete to ever come out of New Jersey. I lettered in four sports, set a state record for the javelin throw. I was All State in baseball, basketball, and football. I was a linebacker with a lot of speed and agility. But like many other New Jersey athletes, I did not go to a college in the state. Instead of ending up at Rutgers or Princeton, many went out west or to the Midwest. They wouldn’t stay in New Jersey because they were black, and Princeton and Rutgers wouldn’t recruit them. Many also enrolled at the black schools in the South and went on to become very famous.

Michigan offered me a football scholarship, but when I asked for $100 in expenses to get to Ann Arbor, they turned me down. Instead I got a four-year scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. My coach there, Carl Siebert, tried to interest the Yankees and the Giants in signing me. No dice.

In 1937, I was still in college when I signed with Abe and Effa Manley’s Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues to play only on the road. I was not offered a bonus. Abe Manley said, “Bonuses only spoil players; if you work yourself up to a good salary, you’ll appreciate it more.”

I was still an undergraduate and played under the assumed name “Jimmy Nelson” to protect my amateur standing and that Lincoln University athletic scholarship. “Jimmy Nelson” was a white fellow, a catcher I used to play with and against. He had a great build, was a good friend, and a perfect model. I played 1937 through 1939 under the Jimmy Nelson name. When the Eagles played at home in Newark, I would work out, take a shower, and then go sit in the stands.

The Eagles had Hall of Famers to be: Ray Dandridge, Leon Day. Later on the team had Larry Doby and Don Newcombe. So we had a great team with a lot of wonderful people. We were a great force in the community. On a Sunday everybody would come down to Ruppert Stadium to watch us play. There would always be a full house which held about 22,000 people. Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald or somebody like that would throw out the first ball. It was just a great time for Newark, a great time for the Eagles, and a great time for us.

We were able to use Ruppert Stadium, the home of the Newark Bears, the top Yankee farm team, when the Bears were on the road. The Bears had the greatest minor league club ever. Mrs. Effa Manley wanted to have us play a series of games with the Bears. Her idea was that the money that came in would be donated to charity. But the Yankees refused to let us play the Bears, because they had too much to lose if we won. And we could have won.

After my sophomore year, I left Lincoln to play full-time with the Eagles. At the time the top salary was two hundred bucks a month, which was excellent because the average working man made only about fifteen or twenty dollars a week. So we used to say that playing baseball was better than working for a living. I loved it.

As a rookie in 1939 I made the All-League team. The word that was heard was that many Negro League owners felt I was the best qualified candidate to break the major league color line. I would go on to hit .400 or better three times in the Negro National League.

The talent that was in the Negro Leagues was just terrific. I played against Satchel Paige in the Puerto Rican Winter Leagues and also in the Negro Leagues. He was with the Kansas City Monarchs. I have never seen a better pitcher than him. He was real fast with real good control. I also never saw better hitters than Buck Leonard or Josh Gibson.

In 1942, I was drafted into the army. I was in the service for three years and came out with a medical problem. My nerves got a little shaky. It took me a couple of years to get back on track.

I returned to the Eagles after my hitch in the army. When the team disbanded, I nearly signed with the Dodgers’ farm team in St. Paul. However, Mrs. Effa Manley said that I was still under contract to the Eagles. The Dodgers offered $2,500 for me. She turned them down. A year later she offered me to Bill Veeck of Cleveland for $1,000 in a package with Larry Doby. Veeck passed.

I spent time playing ball in the Mexican League, the 1948–49 winter playing baseball in Cuba. I had gone to high school with Giant executive Chub Feeney. It was he who recommended that the team sign me. The New York Giants paid Mrs. Manley $5,000 for my contract and assigned me to Jersey City in the International League. This was 1949.

I was batting .373 when the Giants told me to report. It was July 5, 1949. I came to the Polo Grounds along with Hank Thompson. We became the first black players on the Giants, making for a total of seven in the majors. We were greeted by Leo Durocher and shown around.

There were a couple of days when I just sat on the bench and watched. Then we played the Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Leo called on me to pinch hit against Joe Hatten. It was July 8, 1949.

Talk about “Growing Up Baseball.” I was almost thirty-one years old at the time and had been through a great deal of baseball experience. Nevertheless, my knees started knocking as I got into the batter’s box. And they wouldn’t stop. I called time, stepped out. I felt better and stepped back in and worked the count to 3–2 and then walked. I ran all the way to first base. It was a great feeling just to get there. That was how it started for me in the majors.

It was not a time without incident. You’d walk into a room, and some people would walk out. You’d sit down on a train, and one person, maybe two, would get up and walk away. This was 1949 in the United States of America. I do believe that many of them who were prejudiced were sorry afterward that they behaved that way.

Again, I am so sorry that I did not get a chance to play major league baseball earlier. What happened to me should have happened to me ten years before it did. I was not half the ballplayer I was in 1949 that I was in 1939.

But then I say look at Josh Gibson. Look at Buck Leonard — all those fellows. Those guys were as good as any players who ever lived. They never got a chance. I am just grateful for the accomplishments that I did make, for the opportunities I did have.

You are not angry, but you are rueful.

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