A Look at the Most Home Runs in One Season
The BBA Bystander Beat, Issue 2, 2042 Season
This reporter has just joined the Brewster universe and as a stats fiend, it was only going to take a short time before the long history of the Brewster Baseball Association was going to be looked at more closely to gain an understanding and an education of the history of the league. And one of the first questions posed by the six subscribers to this newsletter (all related to this author) was, who hit the most home runs in one season in BBA history?
In the 1986 season, the most aptly named player, Long Chamberlain, hit 73 home runs and in the 68 year history of the league this still ranks as the top single season output. In fact, Chamberlain also has the second most homers in one season with 67 the very next year in 1987! 15 players in the history of the league have hit at least 60 homers in one season.
In the very first year of the BBA in 1973, Jacksonville’s Walter Browne smacked 51 homers as a 35 year old in his first year in the league. That set the standard which was eventually surpassed by a new generation led by Chamberlain. Billy Wilson hit 63 homers and Sawyer Silk hit 62 in the 1987 season, the same year Chamberlain went nuts with 67. Phoenix’s Joe Belinda then came along and hit 64 homers in the 1994 season and that is still the seventh highest single season home run output ever.
However, the BBA would have to wait many years before a true star appeared, almost perennially, on the annual home run record list. Current five time all-star and six time Frick League single season home run leader, third baseman Emilio Morales of the Omaha Hawks who has hit over 60 homers in a year three times. Morales currently has the third most home runs in a season, behind Chamberlain’s two remarkable seasons in the 1980s, with 66 which Morales hit in 2040. Morales also has the sixth most homers in one season when he hit 64 homers in both the 2035 and 2037 years.
Of course no study of the single season home run mark in the BBA would be complete without focusing on the infamous case of Davis Birch. Birch, a four time all-star, who had an otherwise successful and long 20 year career in the BBA with 421 career homers still was plagued by insecurities. Birch somehow managed to get the keys to the BBA commissioner’s password and adjusted his 1985 season, in which he always had fond memories, to read 70 homers and appear second on the all-time single season home run list. The only problem is, when you look at the CatoBase, Birch never hit 70 home runs that year and also, he forgot to edit his runs batted in (66) and his batting average of .078 which gave him away. A sad case, Davis Birch is, as he then became an old prospector in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Morales had the last 60+ home run season in 2040, so when will we see another? Pitching, by all accounts in the league, seems scarce so could that help? Will we have to wait another 30 plus years for a player to reach this level? After all, this is what happened between Neil McKinney’s 60 home run season in 1997 to the 2031 season when Fernando Moreno finally reached the 60 homer level with 61 and then Carlos Gonzales did even better with 65. Who is to say!
