Luke Easter's baseball career in Buffalo during the late 1950s was as distinctive as the pink-and-white house he lived in that still commands attention on Northland Avenue, just north of Jefferson Avenue.
The slugging first baseman attained near-mythical status for the prodigious home runs he crushed at the end of his career at Offermann Stadium, after having played in the Major Leagues and the Negro Leagues before that.
"On Oct. 18, 1955, John Stiglmeier, having just been named the team's executive vice president and general manager, announced the signing of his first player – an aging, gimpy-legged, nearsighted, overweight first baseman who in the previous season had committed 30 errors for the Charleston Senators of the American Association," the late Joseph M. Overfield said in announcing Easter's addition to the team.
Easter is one of a parade of Bisons players, ballpark personalities and team owners whose stories are told in "The Seasons of Buffalo Baseball 1857-2020." The 384-page hardcover book is an updated revision of Overfield's classic "The 100 Seasons of Buffalo Baseball" published in 1985, long considered the definitive book on Buffalo baseball.
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The book was edited by James H. Overfield, Joe's son. He was assisted by former Bisons General Manager Michael J. Billoni, the book's publisher, and Brian M. Frank, with contributing writers who picked up where the older Overfield left off.
"I call the original book 'the bible,' but this is such a nice addition that celebrates all of the history since that first book came out," said John Boutet, the Bisons' archivist. "Some of the best years of Bisons baseball have been in the last 35 years, from the 1997, '98 and 2004 championships to the opening of Pilot Field (now Sahlen Field) and Bartolo Colon's no-hitter."
Joseph Overfield was a regular contributor to the Bison Gram, a tabloid the Bisons published monthly during the season and less frequently in the offseason. Those writings and others not in the original book have found their way into this one.
Ruth and Aaron
The book updates each of the seasons Buffalo fielded a minor league team, beginning in 1878. There are writeups of memorable ballplayers, managers, owners, executives, vendors, mascots and ballparks.
Nor are all the stories about the Bisons.
The book tells the surprising role Buffalo played in the careers of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, the two ballplayers who hit the most home runs over the course of their careers without taking steroids.
Ruth made his first appearance as a professional ballplayer for the International League's Baltimore Orioles against the Bisons, pitching a shutout on April 22, 1914, before a crowd of 200. The next day, "the Bambino" ripped a pinch-hit triple against Buffalo for his first hit.
After becoming a home run hitting star for the New York Yankees, "the Bambino" played almost yearly exhibition games against the Bisons, where he made frequent visits to Ulrich's Tavern and stayed at the Lafayette Hotel. One exhibition appearance, on Oct. 15, 1921, was made over new baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis' objection, leading to a six-week suspension at the start of the following season.
Aaron came to Buffalo in 1952 as an 18-year-old member of the Indianapolis Clowns, a barnstorming team in the Negro Leagues. The team moved that year from Indianapolis to play its home games in Buffalo, leading the local Black press to refer to them as the Buffalo Clowns. Aaron was signed that June by the Milwaukee Braves.
There's also the story of how "The Natural" – a movie with Roy Hobbs, an aging ballplayer played by Robert Redford who hits a dramatic pennant-winning home run at War Memorial Stadium using his "Wonderboy" bat, for the rags-to-riches New York Knights – was made in Buffalo.
Cozy dimensions
The book is full of players who never made it to the majors, or had all-too-brief stays when they did.
That was the case for Rick Lancellotti, who hit 41 home runs for the Bisons as a member of the Pirates' Double-A team when baseball returned in '79, the third-most hit by someone in a Bisons uniform.
Lancellotti racked up 276 home runs in his minor league career, but just two in the majors in a 13-year career that saw him play for 13 minor league teams and three major league teams, all brief call-ups. He also played in eight countries, including two seasons in Japan.
Lancellotti took advantage of War Memorial Stadium's cozy distance from home plate to right field. The distance to the foul pole was listed as 327 feet, but the archivist Boutet said he measured the distance at 287 feet.
The stadium's size on Jefferson Avenue, between Dodge and Best streets, left an immediate impression on Lancellotti, who operates the Buffalo School of Baseball in the Sports Performance Park at Eastern Hills Mall.
"You're coming out of A-ball, where it's not overwhelming or intimidating," Lancellotti said. "War Memorial was intimidating. It looked like the Colisseum in Italy."
Lancellotti needed one more home run to set the league record, but failed to do so in his last at-bat, feeling he let the small, but dedicated crowd down.
"I got a standing ovation and it choked me up," Lancellotti said.
Boosting attendance that averaged 939 a game in 1982 was the first order of business for Billoni after Bob Rich took over the team in 1983. His out-of-the-box promotions, inspired by trailblazing innovator Bill Veeck decades before, earned him the nickname "P.T. Barnum."
In one challenging promotion, Billoni ran into trouble when he staged an Easter egg hunt in the outfield between the innings of a game and kids over 12 refused to leave candy for the younger kids to follow. That forced Billoni to rush out to buy more candy that was then scattered in the outfield grass for kids to find a couple innings later.
"We assembled a young, aggressive and hardworking staff and everyone was singing from the same sheet – let's make this the place to be and have a lot of fun here, and we did," said Billoni, who later served as the Bisons' general manager and vice president.
Riches bring stability
James Overfield, a retired history professor at the University of Vermont, said the book project was done to keep his father's name and the project he was committed to alive.
The most incredible part of the Bisons story, Overfield said, can be found in the 35 years added for the new edition that have all occurred under Rich Products ownership, headed by Bob and Mindy Rich.
The team moved into a new downtown ballpark in 1988, and immediately drew over 1 million people six years in a row, a minor league record, nearly landing a major league franchise in 1992.
"Ownership tended to be a chancy thing, where people would come in and think they could make it work, and then lose a lot of money and sell it off," Overfield said. "There were probably eight or nine times in the history of Bisons baseball when it looked like the city would lose its franchise. That only happened once, in the '70s.
"The happy ending was the purchase of the Bisons by the Rich family in 1983," Overfield said. "This long period of stable ownership is really a unique story for the minor leagues."
. . .
The Seasons of Buffalo Baseball 1857-2020.
Edited by James Overfield. Pubsihed by Billoni Associates Publishing.
Cost: $49.95.
Pages: 384.
Available at: Talking Leaves Books, Buffalo History Museum, Explore & More Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Children’s Museum, The Bookwork, Bases Loaded Sports Collectables, Made in America Stores, and online.
Mark Sommer covers preservation, development, the waterfront, culture and more. He's also a former arts editor at The News.
