Gilberto: Classic Buffalo baseball book gets modern retelling
From Gerard Gilberto at MiLB.com on March 30, 2020, with mention of SABR member Jim Overfield:
In some ways, Jim Overfield picked up his father’s work long before it started.
Joe Overfield began a day job for a local insurance company in the 1940s. But he published his passion project, “100 Seasons of Buffalo Baseball,” in 1985. It was an encyclopedic opus written by a man whose love of history and baseball were eclipsed only by a love for his city.
By his son’s account, Joe Overfield left Buffalo just once — to serve in World War II. With job opportunities limited in the rust belt city, Jim Overfield left his hometown, first to earn a doctorate from Princeton University in 1968, then to Burlington, Vermont, where he worked the next four decades as a professor.
His area of expertise? History.
“He probably loved [historical research] a lot more than I understood at the time,” Jim Overfield said. “His productivity in terms of putting out articles, compiling all that data and information … it was pretty remarkable. That’s what he did. That’s what he loved. And he did a lot of it.”
Until his death in 2000, Joe Overfield intended to update his major work. People reached out to the family, offering to pick up where the book left off. Finally, after his retirement three years ago, Jim Overfield found time to revive the project.
Working with local reporters and historians and a platoon of current and former employees of the Triple-A Bisons, Jim Overfield spearheaded “The Seasons of Buffalo Baseball.”
Read the full article here: https://www.milb.com/milb/news/buffalo-baseball-stories-get-modern-retelling-313159280
Related links:
- Learn more about the life and legacy of Joseph Overfield
- Read more of Joseph Overfield’s early articles for SABR
Originally published: March 30, 2020. Last Updated: March 30, 2020.