Joe Bauman Made It Fly Here

Walking into Joe Bauman Stadium, Aug-2007.

The Spartan facilities currently in place.

An amateur game keeps the field occupied on a Sunday afternoon.

Chronological Tour: Stop 399

• Location: Eastern New Mexico State Fairgrounds, 900 East block of Poe Street at Cahoon, Roswell, N.M. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: Unknown
• Home team: Roswell Rockets, Longhorn / Southwestern / Sophomore Leagues (1949-60); Roswell Invaders, Pecos League (2011-present)
• Capacity: Unknown

Rating: 2 baseballs

After playing briefly in Double-A and Triple-A for the Braves organization in 1948, he left organized baseball for three years but came back in 1952 to play low-level ball in New Mexico. After hitting 103 home runs for Artesia in 1952-53, he moved to Roswell, where he bought a gas station he operated for 50 years and played for the local Roswell Rockets for three seasons. In 1954, he won the Longhorn League (Class C) triple crown by batting .400 with 72 HR and 224 RBI for the Rockets. The RBI total and .916 slugging average he achieved that season are all-time pro records; the 72 HR stood until 2001, when it was broken by Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, who was on his way to the career MLB record he established in 2007.

Unfortunately, the field is nothing like what Bauman played on (although he would remember it this way, as he attended the dedication to him, which took place in 2004 on the 50th anniversary of his slugging accomplishment). All that remains is a concession / press box / restroom building which appears to have been built in the 1970s, as well as aluminum bleachers. But at least the field where Bauman slugged his way into immortality still exists.

There was talk that an independent loop to be called the Southwestern League would play games here; the team would be called the Roswell Aliens, as the city is associated today with a UFO incident in 1947 that took place about 75 miles away but was investigated by officials from the nearby Air Force base. But the league, which would have also had teams in Alamogordo and Clovis, N.M., as well as Odessa, Texas, never got started. In 2011, another independent league, the Pecos League, placed a team called the Invaders at the park.

About the only significant changes since my non-game visit in 2007 are the addition of shade for the first- and third-base bleachers and a bleacher directly behind home plate reserved for season ticket holders. The plaque dedicated to Joe Bauman is tacked up on the concession stand. In addition, the field is kept in much better shape now that a professional team is using it. In an oddity curious to the Invaders, the club uses green bases in keeping with its uniform scheme and the UFO theme.