Johnny Bench

John Lee "Johnny" Bench (born December 7, 1947) is a former American Major League Baseball player for the Cincinnati Reds from 1967 to 1983 and a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He is currently on the Board of Directors for the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.

Bench, a 14-time All-Star selection and the National League's Most Valuable Player in the 1970 and 1972 seasons, was a key member of the "The Big Red Machine", the Reds teams of the 1970s which won six division titles and World Series championships in 1975 and 1976.

Johnny Bench played baseball and basketball and was class valedictorian at Binger High School in Binger, Oklahoma, formerly known as Hoss Spit Flats. His father told him that he felt that the fastest route to becoming a major leaguer was as a catcher. Bench was drafted thirty-sixth overall by the Cincinnati Reds in the second round of the 1965 amateur draft and was called up in August 1967. He hit only .163, but impressed many with his defense and strong throwing arm. Among them: Hall of Famer Ted Williams. Williams signed a baseball for him which predicted that the young catcher would be "A Hall of Famer for sure!"

Williams' prediction eventually became fact with Johnny Bench's election to the Hall of Fame in 1989.

During a spring training game in 1968, Bench was catching the eight-year veteran right-hander Jim Maloney. Once a noted hard thrower, injuries had reduced Maloney's fastball's speed dramatically by this time. However, Maloney insisted on repeatedly "shaking off" his younger catcher and throwing the fastball instead of the breaking balls Bench called for. An exasperated Bench bluntly told Maloney, "your fastball's not popping". Maloney replied with an epithet. To prove to Maloney that his fastball wasn't effective anymore, Bench called for a fastball, and after Maloney released the ball, Bench dropped his catcher's mitt and comfortably caught the fastball barehanded.

The Cincinnati Reds were supposed to open the 1970 baseball season in Riverfront Stadium, but a harsh winter the year before led to delays in readying the new multi-purpose facility. Thus, the Reds played the first half of the season at Crosley Field, which had been their home since 1912. On June 24, the last game at Crosley was played against the visiting San Francisco Giants. The home team was trailing 4-3 in the home half of the eighth inning, when Johnny Bench tied the game with a solo home run against future Hall of Fame right-hander Juan Marichal. The next batter, first baseman Lee May, hit a solo home run for the eventual game-winner. Bench praised the character of Crosley Field, but also said he wouldn't miss the fact that when it rained, the field would get very saturated.

1970 was Bench's finest statistical season; he hit .293 with 45 home runs and drove in 148. He hit .267 with 389 home runs and 1,376 RBIs during his 17-year Major League career, all spent with the Reds. His career home runs by a catcher record stood until surpassed by carlton fisk and the current record holder, Mike Piazza.

Bench won the 1968 National League Rookie of the Year Award, batting .275 with 15 home runs and 82 RBIs, and the honors and accomplishments continued to pile up. In his career, Bench earned ten Gold Gloves, was the 1970 and 1972 Most Valuable Player and was named to the National League All-Star team 14 times. He also won such awards as the Lou Gehrig Award (1975), the Babe Ruth Award (1976), and the Hutch Award (1981). His most dramatic home run was likely his ninth inning lead-off opposite field home run in the final game of the 1972 NLCS vs. Pittsburgh. The solo shot tied the game 3-3, in a game the Reds went on to win later in the inning on a wild pitch, 4-3. It was hailed after the game as "one of the great clutch home runs of all time."

Although baseball history is filled with many outstanding catchers, such as Yogi Berra, Bill Dickey, Gabby Hartnett and Mickey Cochrane, arguably, no player revolutionized the position like Johnny Bench. The catcher's equipment was traditionally called "the tools of ignorance" as many catchers lacked the fielding skills or quickness to play elsewhere. But Bench, who was big (6'1" and 210 pounds) and athletic, inspired many young ballplayers to become catchers and teams began seeking and developing more athletic ballplayers for the position.

Although not the first to use it, Bench popularized the hinged catcher's mitt. Randy Hundley of the San Francisco Giants is credited as actually being the first player to use it in a game, but the success Bench had in his career after adopting it in after a stint on the disabled list in 1966 for a thumb injury on his throwing hand allowed Bench to tuck his throwing arm safely to the side when receiving the pitch. By the turn of the decade, the hinged mitt became standard catchers' equipment.

Having huge hands (a famous photograph features him easily holding seven baseballs in his right hand), Bench also tended to block breaking balls in the dirt by scooping them with one hand instead of the more common and fundamentally proper way: dropping to both knees and blocking the ball using the chest protector to keep the ball in front.

By the latter part of his career, Johnny Bench was being compared to the greatest catchers in baseball history, but the years behind the plate began taking their toll on his knees, which is a common ailment for catchers. For the last three seasons of his career, Bench caught only 13 games and played mostly first base or third base.

The Cincinnati Reds proclaimed September 17, 1983 "Johnny Bench Night" at Riverfront Stadium. During the game he hit his 389th and final home run. He retired at the end of the season.