[Eugene Church]

MY LIFE IN 2023
EC's Life's Is Filled with Glee in '23

"Wit, Quips and Quotes from the Diamond Minds"

Monte Irvin came to the New York Giants in 1951 past his prime at age 32 with a banged-up knee... he played left field and first base and led the Giants to the NL pennant and World Series... in his heyday Irvin had once played center field like dream... 1951 was the year of Bobby Thomson's historic homer that beat the Dodgers... "The Shot Heard Around The World"... Irwin batted .312 with double-digit doubles, triples, homers and stolen bases... the only other MLB players that did this this year were Milwaukee rookie Sam Jethroe and Chicago's Minnie Minoso, two Negro players... Irvin led the NL with 121 RBIs... MLB scouts in the late 30s rated his skills as the "next Joe DiMaggio"... Irvin was bitter about what could have been... he couldn't ever quite leave the bitterness behind... his friend Buck O'Neil had defeated the bitterness.

Here's story from Joe Posnanski's "The Baseball 100".

"Buck had defeated the bitterness. He had turned the pain of this into joy. He called his autobiography "I Was Right On Time". He believed that the life he spent playing and managing in the Negro Leagues and celebrating the Negro Leagues was the best life he could have lived. When asked how hard it was to have to stay at blacks-only hotels, he talked about how much better the food was. When people asked him how sad he was that he didn't get to face Bob Feller and play with Joe DiMaggio, he talked about he did get to face Satchel Paige and play with Josh Gibson."

Buck O'Neil often said, "The people I feel sorry for were the ones that didn't see us play"... He said it was easier to let his bitterness go because he wasn't half the ballplayer Monte Irvin was.

Yep, Buck is one of EC's favorite people... he never saw a cloudy day in his life... nothing but sunshine... wish EC could be more like Buck.