“When he compiled the information — and it’s mind-boggling to think how he did it — he was sitting in the reading room of the Buffalo History Museum going through old, brown Buffalo newspapers looking at box scores,” Jim recalled. “The number of hours he spent doing that I can’t even imagine … but it is huge.”

Thirty-five years later, Jim is paying homage to his dad.

“My father had plans to revamp and update his book,” he said. “Sadly, he passed in 2000 before he got to it. Many encouraged me to undertake the update myself.”

That’s precisely what Jim has done, although it didn’t happen right away.

In fact, it wasn’t until the fall of 2016 that he was inspired to ultimately take on the project upon the discovery in his basement of a box filled with copies of the “Bison Gram,” a Buffalo Bisons’ publication that appeared four times a year from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.

Those issues included articles, written by Joe and entitled “BisonsTales,” that covered different aspects of Buffalo-area baseball history.

“I found all these rich articles full of interesting perspectives,” Jim said.

From that discovery, he decided to take on his dad’s book editing and writing challenge. “The Seasons of Buffalo Baseball 1987-2020,” an expanded 400-page book, with more than 150 black-and-white and color photographs, cartoons and images, was born.

The book is scheduled for release this fall.

“I think he’d approve of it, certainly,” said Jim, a Buffalo native and a history professor emeritus at the University of Vermont. “I had some drafts of the stuff he wrote for the original book, and he would have helped with the stuff I was writing. He’d appreciate it. I think he’d probably rib me a bit about how easy it is to do this research.”

Michael J. Billoni, the project manager, assistant editor and publisher, views the book as the “ultimate chronicle of Buffalo’s storied baseball history.”

“I have been doubly blessed as I worked closely with Joe Overfield on the original ‘100 Seasons of Buffalo Baseball” book and now, 35 years later, we are announcing an update of that book with his son, Jim,” said Billoni, who is a member of the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame and was also the vice president/general manager of the Buffalo Bisons. “I know Joe and the other original members of our Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame Committee are smiling down upon us with great pride.”

There were plenty of smiles last week as the men spent nearly an hour talking about Buffalo baseball history and, of course, Joe Overfield.

“When he compiled the information (for “The 100 Years of Buffalo Baseball“), it’s mind-boggling to think how he did it,” Jim said. ” … He was never a big fan of new technology. He resisted automatic transmission in cars, he didn’t like ballpoint pens. I think by the time he was doing his work, the electric typewriter had been invented by IBM, but he wanted nothing to do with that. He had an old typewriter.

“I think he would have come around and taken advantage of new opportunities. He had grandchildren who could show him how it all worked.”

As it turned out, Joe’s son, was ready and waiting in the figurative bullpen, happy to record the save.

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The book-cover reveal for “The Seasons of Buffalo Baseball 1857-2000” was held last Friday at the Johnny B. Wiley Amateur Athletic Sports Pavilion in Buffalo where Jim provided details about a donation in his father’s name called the Joseph M. Overfield Baseball, Softball and Mentoring Program. A collaboration with Omega Mentoring, the Willie “Hutch” Jones Educational and Sports Program and the Wiley Sport Pavilion, the donation will be from a portion of book sales and sales of a commemorative 26 Shirts creation that will pay homage to the rich history of baseball in Buffalo.

The book, which will be released in late October, will retail for $49.95. A special 10% discounted price of $45 plus tax and handling will be available by pre-ordering the book by Oct. 1 at www.bisons.com.