Sean Kirst: Of baseball's Luke Easter and dreams that have yet to touch the ground
By Sean Kirst
Updated
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Lum Smith, longtime educator and community historian, beyond what was once the outfield fence for the old Offermann Stadium. (Mark Mulville/Buffalo News)
Mark Mulville / Buffalo News
A 1952 Topps baseball card of Luke Easter, a Cleveland Indians first baseman who played for the Buffalo Bisons from 1956 to 1959.
The route of Luke Easter's epic 1957 home run over the Offermann Stadium scoreboard. (Courtesy John Boutet, Bisons archivist)
Lum Smith walks on Woodlawn Avenue, near the spot where a monster home run hit by Luke Easter, in 1957, fell to Earth. (Mark Mulville/Buffalo News)
To Lum Smith, it is a kind of sacred place. He made that point last week as he walked along Woodlawn Avenue in Buffalo, near the Masten Avenue intersection, even if nothing around him seemed unusual: A few old wooden houses with potted flowers on the porches, an open lot where another home once stood, the morning hum of a worker mowing a lawn at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, just across the street ….
Lum Smith, longtime educator and community historian, beyond what was once the outfield fence for the old Offermann Stadium. (Mark Mulville/Buffalo News)
