Monte Irvin and the Miracle of Coogan's Bluff

As we remember Monte Irvin, who passed away this week just a month-and-a-half shy of his 97th birthday, it is worth considering the decisive role he played in the New York Giants' epic comeback from 13½ games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers on August 11, 1951, to the National League pennant. On account of his dramatic bottom-of-the-ninth three-run home run off Ralph Branca to “win the pennant! win the pennant!” Bobby Thomson is of course the ultimate hero of the "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff." Monte Irvin, however, was the Giants' best player, their most valuable player, and arguably should have been the National League MVP in 1951.

Monte Irvin and The Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff

Monte Irvin is honored in the Hall of Fame as a star player in two separate baseball universes—the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues, where he did not get the chance to play until he was 30 years old in 1949 because black players were not allowed. Irvin was among the trailblazers following in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson, and many Negro League players believed he should have been the one to integrate major league baseball. He and infielder Hank Thompson were called up by the Giants as their first black players on July 8, 1949.

Irvin had an outstanding Negro League resume and was hitting .373 for Triple-A Jersey City when he was called to New York. With Bobby Thomson, Willard Marshall, and Whitey Lockman all hitting over .300 in the Giants’ outfield, however, there was little reason for manager Leo Durocher to make a change; Irvin played in just 36 of the 81 games the Giants had left on their schedule; he started in just 19 and came to the plate only 93 times.

Durocher, however, certainly knew the quality player he had. After starting the 1950 season with Jersey City, where he hit .510 in 18 games (yes, .510 is correct), Irvin was back in New York, in the starting line-up—first in right field, then at first base—and hit .299 in his first substantive year of major league baseball. The next year Monte Irvin began at first base, finished up in left field, and validated that he was not merely a legitimate major league player, but an elite player. 

Bobby Thomson is the hero remembered, but there would have been no Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff without Monte Irvin in the Giants’ line-up. Moreover, the legitimacy of Thomson’s “shot heard round the world” has since been somewhat tarnished, or at least called into question, by the revelation that he may have had help—Bobby Thomson always denied this was so—from spying eyes beyond center field at the Polo Grounds. 

The story well told in his book, The Echoing Green, Joshua Prager relates how Giants batters benefited at home when Durocher sent coach Herman Franks to spy on opposing catchers' signs through a powerful telescope from the Giants' center field clubhouse at the Polo Grounds, beginning on July 20. It was from that point that Thomson, who had been in a season-long batting funk that forced him into a platoon situation, came alive at the plate. He also resumed playing regularly on that very day as a replacement for Hank Thompson at third base after Thompson suffered a grievous injury that sidelined him for virtually the entire rest of the season.

Monte Irvin's hitting, however, carried the Giants at least as much as Thomson's. And Irvin had been hitting all year. At the time Durocher's spy operation went into effect, Irvin was batting .302, had 12 home runs, and his 61 runs batted in led the team. He finished the year with 24 home runs—second on the Giants to Thomson—121 RBIs to lead the league, and a .312 batting average.

When Durocher was canvassing his clubhouse to get his team's buy-in, quite likely making the point as an offer they could not refuse, Monte Irvin, according to Prager, had the temerity to tell his manager he didn't need extra help to be a dangerous hitter. Irvin proved his point, less by continuing to hit well at home (3 home runs,16 RBIs, and a .300 batting average from July 20 till the end of the season), than by going into other team's ballparks and tearing the place apart. 

In 39 road games after July 20, Irvin hit .340 with 9 home runs and 44 runs batted in. Irvin's productivity in road games was critical because not only did the Giants play more away games after July 20 than at home, all but seven of their scheduled games in the final month were on the road—where they did not have their unique Polo Grounds advantage—and they still had to make up a big deficit to catch the Dodgers.

In the three-game playoff to decide the pennant with the Dodgers, Irvin had one hit in each game, including a home run in the first game when the Giants got the jump on Brooklyn by beating them in Ebbets Field. So dramatic were the Giants' pennant drive and the Thomson home run to win it all that the ensuing World Series against the all-mighty Yankees was almost an afterthought. The Giants lost in 6 games, but Monte Irvin hit .458 (11 hits in 24 at bats) to lead both teams, got on base in exactly half of his plate appearances (also the best on both teams), and stole two bases—including home with guardian Yogi Berra making a desperate lunge to tag him out. Unlike Mr. Berra's insistence till the end of his days that Jackie Robinson, in another World Series steal of home plate against the Yankees, was out—OUT! OUT!—Yogi did not say the same about Monte Irvin's theft.

Based on the wins above replacement metric, Monte Irvin was only the fourth-best position player in the National League in 1951, after Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial, and Ralph Kiner. But especially given his clutch performance in the final two months of the season—Irvin hit .338 with 11 home runs and 49 runs batted in—when his team had to make up a seemingly insurmountable deficit against the Brooklyn Dodgers, a strong argument can be made that Monte Irvin was the Most Valuable Player in the National League. The Giants surely would not have won without his exceptional productivity.

Monte Irvin wound up with only five first-place votes for MVP, second-most in the balloting, and finished third overall in the voting. Brooklyn's Roy Campanella, who had 33 home runs, 108 RBIs, and a .325 average, won the award by a land slide, getting 11 first-place votes. Stan Musial finished second overall.

Through no fault of his own, Monte Irvin did not have the major league career that by rights should have been his. That does not change that he was one of the greatest players of his generation, and one of the best of all time.

Giant Years II: Less Dynastic, More Episodic

The Giants' 2014 National League pennant is the 21st pennant for the franchise since the beginning of the 20th century, but only their eleventh in the last 90 years and the Giants' sixth in San Francisco, and four of those NL flags are in this century. After winning 10 pennants in 21 years between 1904 and 1924, the Giants' stretch of competing teams became less frequent. Having already discussed the teams of the John McGraw-built and managed New York Giants baseball dynasty in the first quarter of the 20th century, this is the second of two articles looking chronologically at the Giants' best teams over any five-year period. 

Giant Years II: Less Dynastic, More Episodic

At the time John McGraw stepped down as Giants manager early in the 1932 season, the Giants' 10 pennants were the most of any major league team since the start of the modern era, said to have begun when the American League declared itself "major" in 1901. But the Giants had been mostly inconsequential since their last pennant and dismaying World Series defeat in 1924.

'Twas first baseman player-manager Bill Terry led the Giants to their next string of pennants--three in five years between 1933 and 1937. After winning the franchise's eleventh pennant in 1933 (at the time, still the most of any major league team since the start of the 20th century) and beating Washington in the World Series, the Terry Giants blew big leads in each of the next two years before winning back-to-back pennants in 1936, when they overcame a 10½-game deficit in mid-July, and 1937. Unfortunately, both years the Giants had the dubious honor of playing their excellent Joe DiMaggio-Lou Gehrig-led New York rivals across the Harlem River. Enough said. By the time the 1937 Yankees' mauling of the Giants was done, the Yankees had clearly usurped the Giants' dynastic mantle, with now nine pennants of their own (all in the previous 16 years) and more World Series championships--six--than any other team. For more on the 1933-37 Giants, please see my post from October 2, "Nationals vs. Giants (1933):  http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2014/10/nationals-vs-giants-1933.html.

Through the remainder of Bill Terry's tenure, which ended in 1941, and all of Mel Ott's as manager, 1942-1948, the New York Giants were mostly a second-division club. Leo Durocher changed that when he took over from Ott in July 1948. Refashioning the Giants from a plodding, powerhouse team that set a record with 221 home runs in 1947, Durocher strengthened the team's infield defense and top of the order by acquiring second baseman Eddie Stanky and shortstop Alvin Dark from the Braves in 1950; rehabilitated pitcher Sal Maglie to bolster a starting rotation headlined by Larry Jansen; and welcomed the integration of the Giants with infielder Hank Thompson and Hall of Fame outfielders Monte Irvin and Willie Mays.

If not for the Korean War, which claimed Mays for the US armed forces in 1952 and 1953, the New York Giants from 1950 to 1954 might have challenged the Brooklyn Dodgers as the best National League team in the first half of the 1950s. The Giants finished strong to end up in third place in 1950, with the best record of NL teams after July 4th; shocked the world with their relentless pursuit of the Dodgers in 1951 that culminated in Bobby Thomson's (and radio broadcaster Russ Hodges') moment in history; finished second--4½ back--in 1952 without Mays in the line-up, which means they might well have overtaken Brooklyn if they had the Say Hey Kid; and in 1954 won both the franchise's final pennant--their 15th--and World Series--only five--in New York. 

Even though they won only one pennant--and that required a three-game playoff in 1962 against the Los Angeles Dodgers--the 1962-66 Giants are arguably the best Giants team over any five-year period since the move to San Francisco in 1958. In three tight Dodgers-Giants pennant races in '62, '65 and '66 the two teams played to a virtual draw in their regular-season series, an even split in 1962 and 1966 with nine wins each, and the Dodgers held a two-game edge (10 wins to 8) in 1965, which turned out to be exactly LA's pennant-winning margin of victory. The Giants were also in the pennant hunt till the final weekend of the 1964 season, while the Dodgers were out of that race by the mid-season.

This Giants team, especially in retrospect but even at the time, seemed more imposing than their direct contemporary 1962-66 Dodgers. Their core regulars during these years included five future Hall of Fame players—Mays, Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Gaylord Perry. (The Dodgers had only two future Hall of Famers among their core regulars; of course, they were Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.) While the Dodgers had superb pitching to compensate for a mediocre offense, San Francisco had a far more powerful offense and their own dominant pitcher in Marichal, who won 18 in 1962 and then had four straight 20-win seasons, including 25 in both 1963 and 1966.  Mays for those exact five years put together the best five-year stretch of any National League position player in history based on the wins above replacement metric for player value, marginally better than Barry Bonds's cumulative WAR from 2000 to 2004. 

Although they won division titles in 1971 and 1987, the Giants' second pennant in San Francisco did not come until 1989. That flag was in a stretch when they finished first in their division only twice in five years between 1986 and 1990 and were otherwise middle of the pack. It wasn't until 2000 to 2004 that the Giants had their first stretch of five straight 90-win seasons since Bill Terry's 1933-37 Giants. The 2000-04 Giants, however, were first in the NL West only twice and won their only pennant during these years in 2002 as the National League's wild card team. Even though they were powered by Barry Bonds at his controversial best, including those 73 home runs in 2001, and second baseman Jeff Kent (through 2002), this San Fran team was never better than second in the league in runs scored (and then, only once).

The Giants are now poised to win their third World Series in five years with a team that finished first in the NL West and won 90 games only twice since 2010, had only the sixth-best record in the National League and the eighth-best in the odd-number years between their pennants, and which won the pennant this season as a wild card team tied with the other NL wild card team--the Pirates--for the fourth-best record in the league. Catcher Buster Posey and third baseman Pablo Sandoval are the only position players who were regulars in manager Bruce Bochy's line-up back in 2010; first baseman Brandon Belt, shortstop Brandon Crawford and right fielder Hunter Pence were there for the Giants' 2012 championship. The Giants have had more continuity on their pitching staff with starting pitchers Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain (who missed most of this season because of injury), Ryan Vogelsong and Tim Lincicum (who was demoted to the bullpen late season) and relievers Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez, Sergio Romo (closer in 2012) and Santiago Casilla (closer since mid-season 2014). 

All that now stands in their way is Kansas City, although even with a third Series triumph in five years it would be difficult to call the 2010-14 Giants "dynastic"--at least not yet, what with their disappointing odd-number seasons.