Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, who became one of the first African American stars in Major League Baseball and mentored Willie Mays, has died at his Houston home at the age of 96, MLB officials said on Tuesday.
Irvin debuted with the New York Giants aged 30 in 1949, two years after Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
"The National Pastime has lost a pioneer with the passing of Monte Irvin, and the Hall of Fame has lost a devoted family member and friend," Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, said on the organisation's website.
An outfielder who could hit for power and average, Irvin played most of his eight big-league seasons with the Giants. In 1951, he took Mays, a rookie, under his wing. Mays went on to become one of baseball's all-time greats.
Irvin helped the Giants stage one of baseball's biggest comebacks in overtaking the Dodgers for the 1951 National League pennant, and played in the Giants' 1954 World Series championship team.
He batted .293 with 99 home runs in the Major Leagues.
Irvin served for three years during World War Two, putting his baseball career on hold after being drafted into the US Army. His unit was deployed to the secondary line during the Battle of the Bulge, the Hall of Fame said.
After retiring, he became a scout for the New York Mets and spent 17 years as a public relations specialist for the baseball commissioner's office.
Irvin was elected in 1973 to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"Today is a sad, sad day for me. I lost someone I cared about and admired very, very much; someone who was like a second father to me," Mays was quoted as saying on the MLB.com website.
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