The Roswell Rocket
He was a prodigious minor league home run hitter
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Talk home run hitters and you will soon hear names like Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Hank Aaron, Mark McGwire, and now Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants who is after the record for the Major League single season long ball title. First it was Ruth’s 60 wallops in 1927 that changed the game, then Maris who barely eked out his 61 in 1961, and finally McGwire with 70 in 1998. One name, however, is seldom mentioned in that poll of powerful pokes – Joe Bauman who has the all-time record of one-season homers in professional baseball with 72.
The 6’ 5”, 235 left-handed first baseman was born on April 17, 1923 in Welsh, Oklahoma, and grew up in Oklahoma City where his father worked for the Railway Express Company. The tall and awkward lad played three sports in high school including baseball. Joe first signed with Little Rock in 1941, but spent the next four years in the US Navy as a “landlocked ballplayer.” He says that he hated the Navy, but “I learned a lot from the big league players who were on my team.” One man on his team was pitcher Al Benton who won 98 games in his 14 big league years mostly with the Detroit Tigers.
After leaving the service, Joe went with Amarillo where he began his home run success with 48 in 1946 and 38 the next year. Bauman was now sold to the Boston Braves organization, but had a troubled 1948 due to a contract disagreement with the Braves who cut his salary by $200 a month. He left organized baseball for three years, 1949-1951, and pumped gas at a Texaco gas station in the daytime and hit home runs for the semi-pro Elk City during the evenings. He married his cheerleader, high school girlfriend, Dorothy, and was making more money for Elk City than he would have with the Braves organization. Joe bought a gas station in Elk City, but sold it in 1952 to return to pro baseball.
The big infielder moved his family to Artesia, a small town of some 12,000 people in New Mexico, where he continued his home run slugging. Joe bashed 50 in 1952 for the Artesia Drillers followed by 53 in ‘53, bought his release, and went 40 miles up US 265 to Roswell, elevation 3573, where he would soon have his titanic year. He added his name to the Roswell notables that included golfer Nancy Lopez and early rocket scientist Robert Goddard. Bauman bought another service station, and settled down in a land of cattle, rocky deserts, atomic bombs, and possibly a few aliens who some claim stop by from time to time.
The previous professional home run leader was minor leaguer Joe Hauser who had 69 for Minneapolis in 1933, and the first to ever have two 60-homer seasons. Hauser was a ballyhooed star for the Philadelphia A’s in 1920’s, but the “new Babe Ruth” could only muster up 27 homers one year. Joe who never quite made it in the big time due to a serious kneecap injury, and after six years in the big leagues he dropped back down into the minors where he played until 1942.
Bauman became the King of Clout in 1954 when he went the distance 72 times for the Roswell Rockets of the Class C Longhorn League, a circuit consisted of eight independent teams in southeast New Mexico and west Texas. Few had such a towering season as did Joe when he won the Triple Crown with 224 RBI’s, played in all 183 games, was walked 150 times, hit an incredible .400, and slapped one out on the average of every seventh trip to the plate.
As Bauman edged to the close of the season he was stuck at 64 until he added four more one night in Sweetwater, Texas giving him 68, one short of Hauser’s all-time mark. Joe soon tied Hauser, but failed to hit any more until the team finished the season in Artesia, now called the NuMexers, with a doubleheader.
Joe hit number 70 in his first at-bat, his 71st later in the same game, and finally 72 in the nightcap, his final game of the year. He was featured in Life Magazine and in a new sports publication, Sports Illustrated, but did not even rate a raise the next year. The big boy from Roswell did make some extra when the fans often put money through the backstop after one hit the bleachers. The hitter might get $50 with a routine homer or up to $250 for a game-winner. Joe thinks he got $500 that big night. Also each player received a free ham for every home run.
Bauman did have a good encore season when he finished with 42 home runs, 132 RBI’s, and a .336 average, but his baseball career was almost over when an ankle injury forced him out of baseball after 52 games in 1955. Joe stayed in the gas station business, bought three liquor stores with a brother-in-law, and retired in 1984.
Bauman did appear in one game for Triple A Milwaukee in 1948, but in spite of his home run power Joe never wore a Major League uniform. Where is that famous bat that hit Number 72? No one knows, and a visitor to Roswell, New Mexico would find very little evidence of Joe Bauman or his remarkable home run record.