One home run, all we got was one home run?

This week's Cracked Bats at MILB.com tells the story of the 1952 Cordele A's of the Florida-Georgia League. A team that had just one homer during the season.

Recalling a once-in-a-season blast
Betcher hit team's lone home run during the summer of '52

The Georgia-Florida League was not rife with home run hitters during its 23-year existence. But few could have expected what the team in the tiny Georgia town of Cordele experienced in 1952 when the A's put together one of the most punchless seasons in baseball history.

Cordele finished fifth in the eight-team Class D circuit that year, 15 games behind frontrunning Valdosta. What makes their otherwise pedestrian season significant, however, is the fact the A's hit only one home run during the 139-game campaign.

Ralph "Froggie" Betcher was the team's resident slugger, connecting for that lone shot on July 3 against Brunswick.
...
"We were aware that mine was the only home run for our team," said Betcher, 79. "I guess there were plenty of homers in the league, but it's a hard thing to say if people were expecting us to hit home runs. I hit seven homers with Pulaski in the Appalachian League in 1950, but I think the ball traveled a lot further there than in the Georgia-Florida League. I don't think there were too many homers hit by many clubs in '52 in the league."

...
Froggie and the rest of the A's celebrated the July 4 holiday a few hours early that summer when they took the field against Brunswick at City Park. Cordele only averaged 465 fans per game in 1952, with most of the games, including the July 3 contest, played at night.

Cordele won, 14-2, in what was a rather nondescript affair. Had Betcher not connected for his fourth-inning blast, the A's story would be equally compelling but only because the team would have gone the entire season without hitting a home run.

"The irony of the situation was that the bases were loaded when I came up," said Betcher, who was 1-for-5 in the game. "But on the first pitch, the catcher tried to pick a guy off third. He threw wild and the guy on third scored, the guy on second scored and then the guy on first scored when the throw to third base went wild again.

"The next pitch, I hit a home run, 407 feet over the center-field fence. I remember it like it was yesterday. For a youngster, that's a pretty good drive. That's what happened. It was a fastball right down the middle, and I let her go. I was lucky to connect, I guess."

I guess.