He didn’t look like a slugger. At 5-foot-11 and 175 pounds, Joe Hauser cut a modest figure as he strode to the plate. But his quick wrists and sweet swing made him a terror at bat in 1930, when he hit 63 home runs for the minor-league Orioles.
Never heard of Hauser? His time in Baltimore was brief (two seasons). Yet 90 years ago, the quiet, blond first baseman made news by becoming the first player in professional baseball to hit more than 60 homers in a season. In 1927, Babe Ruth, the Baltimore-born star of the New York Yankees, had hit 60 to set a big-league mark that would last for more than three decades.