Jackson: Joe Bauman soared to home run record with Roswell in 1954
From SABR member Josh Jackson at MiLB.com on June 18, 2019:
He wasn’t gregarious. He wasn’t interested in fame. He never made as much money as the President of the United States. He was, in some ways, the anti-Babe Ruth. And yet there’s no denying that Joe Bauman’s accomplishments make him a Ruthian figure.
Although he died a decade and a half ago, he’ll live on in Minor League Baseball for a long time to come. His most noteworthy feats aren’t commonly known, but his name is familiar to most who closely follow the Minors — each year, the player who leads all levels in home runs receives the Joe Bauman Award, with the honor going to the likes of the Mets’ Pete Alonso (2018), the Cubs’ Kris Bryant (2014) and the Rangers’ Joey Gallo (2013) in recent years.
Roswell, New Mexico, was home to some 30,000 people in the mid-1950s, an outpost about 90 miles from the border with West Texas and some 200 from Albuquerque. In popular lore, a UFO crash-landed outside of Roswell in 1947, but whatever actually happened that day, it didn’t prepare the city for Bauman’s ’54 campaign, when he set a professional single-season home run record with 72 long balls in 138 games while batting .400/.535/.916 with 224 RBIs.
Read the full article here: https://www.milb.com/milb/news/roswells-joe-bauman-set-home-run-record-in-1954/c-307626052
- Related link: Download your free e-book edition of SABR’s Going For The Fences: The Minor League Home Run Record Book, by Bob McConnell
Originally published: June 18, 2019. Last Updated: June 18, 2019.