Luke Easter was a great ballplayer who was perhaps unlucky in that he was past his prime when the Major Leagues finally realized their folly and began following the lead of the Brooklyn Dodgers by hiring black ballplayers. By the time he made it to the big show he was nearing 40, but he is remembered for blasting some of the longest home runs in memory.
His major league career was thus woefully short, but my memories of him are from his last years as a professional ballplayer, which he spent with my hometown Rochester Red Wings.
He was nearing 50 by then, but he was beyond doubt the fan favorite in Rochester. When he came to bat at the old Red Wing Stadium on Norton Street, the crowd would shout in unison "Luuuuuuuuke!" I have a very happy memory of Luke stepping up to the plate one evening and blasting a pinch hit home run over the right field fence in a close game. I looked at my father, who was beaming. It has hard to convince my father to make the 25 mile drive back into the city for a ball game, especially after he's made the same drive home from his job at Kodak hours before. But he clearly enjoyed that moment and it's a memory of him, and of Luke I will never forget.
What I did not know is that in 1979, Luke Easter was murdered during an attempted robbery.
Pat Doyle in the Baseball Almanac describes this final tragedy: "Employed as the chief union steward for the Aircraft Workers Alliance, Luke was approached by two robbers in a Euclid, Ohio, bank parking lot. Refusing to hand over $40,000 in union funds, he was shot in the chest with a shotgun blast and died immediately. The same loyalty and integrity he gave to baseball remained with him throughout his life. "
I say "Amen" to that.
On the other end of the heroic spectrum, William Zantzinger, immortalized as the villain in the great Bob Dylan Song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", has died at age 69.
Zantzinger was convicted of manslaughter, fined $500 and given a six-month sentence. "Isn't it amazing that Zantzinger is going out as the nation's first African-American president is about to take office," David Bruce Poole, a Hagerstown lawyer whose father was the Washington County state's attorney who assisted Baltimore prosecutors, said yesterday.
"What happened then was a seminal moment in Maryland's civil rights history," said Poole, who has the white cane Zantzinger used in the attack. Poole said he is planning to donate the cane to a museum.
Poole added: "The shame of Zantzinger is that he never mended his ways." Yes, ain't it a shame.
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