Buffalo Rising Online

Apr 5th 2007, 12:34pm By Dave Staba

Buffalo’s 3 p.m. first pitch against the Richmond Braves has been rescheduled for Friday as part of a doubleheader set to start at 4 p.m.

The expanded wait for baseball’s return, coinciding as it does with Sunday’s holiday, provides an ideal time to consider perhaps the greatest of all Bisons, Luke Easter.

Easter arrived in Buffalo in 1956, with his career in baseball and the sport’s lifespan in the city both seemingly coming to an end.

Easter was 41, or somewhere thereabouts. Different accounts place his date of birth somewhere between 1911 and 1921. His obituary in the New York Times listed it as Aug. 4, 1915, so we’ll go with that.

Buffalo’s parent club through the early 1950s, the Detroit Tigers, had abandoned their minor-league affiliate, leaving the Bisons to make a go of it as a community-owned team comprised of former major-leaguers and career bushers, bereft of younger prospects. Area baseball fans responded accordingly. Until Easter arrived.

Easter had been kept from the majors by the color line until 1949, when he joined the Cleveland Indians as a 33-year-old rookie. Easter, who had starred with the Negro League’s legendary Homestead Grays, played only three full seasons in Cleveland, but made the most of them, hitting 86 home runs – including the longest blast in the history of cavernous Municipal Stadium’s -- and driving in 307 runs between 1950 and ’52.

Injuries shortened his ’53 season and led to his release early in ’54. He spent two years bouncing through the minors, from San Diego to Ottawa to Charleston, before arriving in Buffalo.

It was a perfect fit. The ’56 Bisons finished last, but Easter’s 35 home runs led the International League and revived interest in the team, with fans yelling "Luuuuuuuuke" each time he came to the plate or ripped a tape-measure shot, presaging the "Bruuuuuuuce" with which Rich Stadium crowds would serenade Bruce Smith decades later.

In 1957, Easter slammed 40 homers, including one that became the first ever hit over the scoreboard at Offermann Stadium, and Buffalo reached the postseason.

The Bisons slipped in ’58, but Easter kept slamming as he reached his 44th birthday, hitting .307 with 38 home runs and 109 RBI.

The end of Easter’s career in Buffalo and subsequent stint in Rochester, where he became just as popular as a part-time player and coach, are chronicled here in a piece by Pat Doyle.

In addition to his mammoth home runs, Easter’s personality fueled his popularity. In “The New Bill James Historical Abstract,” baseball historian and statistician Bill James calls Easter "an amiable, fun-loving man who gambled, wasn't 100 percent honest, and had a temper.”

After his playing days, Easter moved back to Cleveland and was working as a union steward when he was killed during a robbery in 1979.

Easter’s career is commemorated in both Buffalo and Rochester, where he is a member of each franchise’s Hall of Fame, as well as in Cleveland, where there is a park named for him.

Easter was crucial to the survival of baseball in both Buffalo and Rochester at a time interest had dwindled in both places. You can only imagine what he might have accomplished on the field if not for the sport’s shameful segregation before Jackie Robinson arrived in 1947.

"If you could clone him and bring him back, you'd have the greatest power hitter in baseball today, if not ever," James wrote.

Painting of Luke Easter by Michael Guccione