RetroSimba

Luke Easter was a popular player with a power-packed swing who produced home runs well past age 40, including two seasons with a Cardinals farm club.

Easter grew up in St. Louis and played semipro baseball there. He became one of the top sluggers in the American League with the Indians in the 1950s before extending his career in the minors at Buffalo and Rochester.

His life ended tragically, on March 29, 1979, when he was robbed and murdered by two gunmen outside a bank in Euclid, Ohio.

Hard hitting

Easter was born in Jonestown, Mississippi, and moved with his family to St. Louis when he was a boy. At 21, he joined a semipro team, the St. Louis Titanium Giants, in 1937 and played for them until he entered the Army in 1942.

A left-handed hitter, Easter was 6 feet 4 and 240 pounds. After his stint in the military, he eventually signed with the Pittsburgh-based Homestead Grays of the Negro National League and played for them in 1947 and 1948.

In 1949, two years after Jackie Robinson of the Dodgers integrated the major leagues, Easter signed with the defending World Series champion Indians and was assigned to their San Diego farm club in the Pacific Coast League. Though he missed time because of a broken right kneecap, Easter hit .363 with 25 home runs and 92 RBI for San Diego and was called up to the Indians in August 1949, a week after he turned 34.

Over the next three seasons, Easter was the Indians’ first baseman and produced 28 home runs with 107 RBI in 1950, 27 home runs with 103 RBI in 1951 and 31 home runs with 97 RBI in 1952. Easter was one home run short of tying teammate Larry Doby for the American League crown in 1952.

In 1950, Easter hit the longest home run at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. The ball carried 477 feet into the upper deck in right.

A broken left foot limited Easter to 68 games for the Indians in 1953. He batted six times for them in 1954 before being sent to the minors.

Better with age

Though he’d never again play in the big leagues, Easter, 38, wasn’t done as a player. He hit 28 home runs in the minors in 1954 and 30 in 1955.

In 1956, Easter joined the Buffalo Bisons of the International League and over the next three seasons he became their most popular and productive player. He hit 35 home runs with 106 RBI in 1956 and 40 home runs with 128 RBI in 1957. Many of Easter’s home runs were prodigious. In 1958, the year he turned 43, Easter hit 38 home runs with 109 RBI for Buffalo.

The spring weather was especially cold in upstate New York in 1959 and Easter struggled. He was batting .179 with one home run when he was released by Buffalo on May 13. “He gave it all he had, but it wasn’t enough,” Buffalo manager Kerby Farrell said to the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle.

Easter was immensely popular with fans, who marveled at his home run prowess and could count on him to accommodate autograph requests. The Rochester Red Wings, a farm club of the Cardinals, saw an opportunity and signed him. “We’ve been looking for another left-hand hitter with power,” said Rochester manager Cot Deal. “This could be the answer.”

Before sealing the deal, Rochester general manager George Sisler Jr., consulted with Cardinals farm director Walter Shannon and got approval to open a spot at first base for Easter by moving prime prospect Gene Oliver to left field, the Rochester newspaper reported.

Sisler wanted to be certain Oliver’s development wouldn’t be hurt by shifting positions. “As he goes, the team seems to go,” Sisler said, “and we don’t want to do anything to upset his playing or hitting.”

Right for Rochester

Easter got six hits in his first nine at-bats for Rochester and became a mainstay in the lineup. In August 1959, catcher Tim McCarver, 17, joined Rochester and became a teammate of Easter, 44.

Easter hit 21 home runs for Rochester in 1959. The last produced a walkoff win against Buffalo.

“There can be no arguing about Luke’s popularity, so clear-cut is the big man’s superiority in the goodwill department,” wrote Rochester sports editor Paul Pinckney. “He always will be the No. 1 choice of the youngsters.”

Though productive, the Cardinals didn’t call up Easter because they had George Crowe, 38, a left-handed batter who served as their backup first baseman and pinch-hitter.

In 1960, the year he turned 45, Easter produced a 22-game hitting streak for Rochester and overall hit .302 with 14 home runs.

After the 1960 season, Rochester dropped its affiliation with the Cardinals and became a farm club of the Orioles, but Easter remained. In 1962, the year he turned 47, Easter batted .281 with 15 home runs for Rochester. His last full season as a player was 1963. He also appeared in 10 games for Rochester as a pinch-hitter in 1964, the year he became 49.

Gentle giant

After his baseball career, which included a stint as Indians coach in 1969, Easter worked in Cleveland for TRW Inc., an aerospace and automotive manufacturer.

As chief steward for the Aircraft Workers Alliance at TRW, Easter provided a service to co-workers who couldn’t get to a bank. Easter regularly collected their paychecks, cashed them at a bank and delivered the cash back to his fellow employees at work.

Easter, 63, was leaving a bank with thousands of dollars in cash when he was approached by two men who demanded he give them the money. When Easter refused, they shot him dead.

In an interview with David Condon of the Chicago Tribune, Bill Veeck, the Indians owner who signed Easter in 1949, called him “a wonderful, gentle person.”

“Everyone will miss Luke as a man,” Veeck said. “Baseball also will mourn him as a superstar talent never fulfilled. Luke’s talent would have found fulfillment if he’d reached the big-time as a youth.”

Said Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, who was Easter’s teammate with the Indians: “If Luke had come into the majors 10 years earlier, I think he’d have been one of the top hitters all-time.”