{"id":104924,"date":"2025-06-15T05:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T05:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/104924\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T05:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T05:33:10","slug":"how-big-red-machine-legend-johnny-bench-changed-catcher-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/104924\/","title":{"rendered":"How Big Red Machine legend Johnny Bench changed catcher position"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench transformed the catcher position.<\/p>\n

Babe Ruth’s 1927 Yankees? Forget it, Cincinnati Reds legend Johnny Bench says. The 1975 Big Red Machine was better than any of them.<\/p>\n

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida \u2013 When ex-con ballplayer Harry Decker<\/a> invented the first catcher\u2019s mitt around the time pitchers started throwing overhand in the 1880s, it didn\u2019t look like much more than a leather pancake with a dent in the middle.<\/p>\n

For eight decades or so, the biggest change in how that piece of equipment looked and how it was used involved thicker padding.<\/p>\n

Then Johnny Bench broke his thumb again.<\/p>\n

“And I thought, \u2018This is stupid,’ ” Bench said.<\/p>\n

After two broken thumbs from foul tips in three seasons, the Cincinnati Reds<\/a>\u2019 legendary catcher switched to a newly designed hinged catcher\u2019s mitt, pulled most of the padding out, started tucking his throwing hand out of harm\u2019s way, and then started picking balls out of the dirt and doing things athletically at the position that had never been seen.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Chicago Cubs catcher Randy Hundley, one of the league\u2019s best defensive catchers, already had used the new mitt first, the year before, but nobody did what Bench did with it.<\/p>\n

“He was probably the best all-time as far as what he did and how he transformed catching,” said San Francisco Giants manager Bob Melvin, who tried to follow Bench\u2019s lead during a 10-year big-league catching career that started two years after Bench retired.<\/p>\n

“It was groundbreaking.”<\/p>\n

When the legacy of the Big Red Machine is measured for its impact on the game and lasting power 50 years after the 1975 World Series championship, no other player among its all-time lineup of superstars can claim greater individual impact on how the game has been played since \u2013 even a half-century later.<\/p>\n

Pete Rose\u2019s hitting, versatility and \u201cCharlie Hustle\u201d aggression on the field \u2013 and transgressions off the field \u2013 left indelible marks on MLB history. Joe Morgan and Tony Perez are in the Hall of Fame. George Foster was an MVP.<\/p>\n

But so outsized was Bench\u2019s influence on the most important non-pitching position on the field that Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman describes him as \u201cthe greatest player at a given position in the history of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody in the game argues with that. Even catchers. Especially catchers.<\/p>\n

“It defined the position for everybody,” said Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson, the Reds\u2019 1990 first-round draft pick who later became an All-Star catcher with Seattle.<\/p>\n

Johnny Bench early career path rivaled Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle<\/p>\n

The catching revolution started almost as soon as Bench\u2019s career did. He was entrusted with calling every pitch of every game he caught from the day he was drafted in 1965, was handed the reins of a veteran pitching staff as a rookie two years later, and when he had to figure out a better way to do things because \u201cmy big thumbs are going to stick out here and break,\u201d the Binger High School valedictorian tailored the toughest position on the diamond to fit his body and skills.<\/p>\n

And from eye test to metrics, history suggests nobody has done it better.<\/p>\n

“I mean, he\u2019s called up at 19 years old,” said Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, another former big-league catcher and Bench disciple. “At 19, he was running things. That\u2019s what\u2019s amazing.”<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing: That\u2019s not even close to the most amazing part of Bench\u2019s story and legacy.<\/p>\n

In the five full seasons plus 26 games that he played in the majors before he turned 25, Bench earned five All-Star selections, five Gold Glove awards, a Rookie of the Year award, two MVPs, two league home run titles, drove in 512 runs, hit 154 regular-season home runs, four more in the postseason and played in 12 World Series games.<\/p>\n

Forget the comparisons to all-time catchers.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-1 power athlete from small-town Oklahoma was on a career offensive path that rivaled Willie Mays and Bench\u2019s idol, Mickey Mantle, with as many MVPs as the two others had combined before age 25 and eerily similar power numbers.<\/p>\n

Combine that with the things Bench did behind the plate, along with the workload, and that career arc starts to look like the stuff of unicorns and Ohtanis.<\/p>\n

Until the day they saw the spot.<\/p>\n

Until the day a few months later they took some of Johnny Bench away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t reach the level I could have,\u201d Bench said. \u201cIt sounds insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘It was never Johnny Bench anymore’<\/p>\n

On his way to a second MVP award in 1972, a lesion on Bench\u2019s right lung was discovered on an X-ray during a followup to a routine examination in August, and 53 years ago the only way to determine whether it was malignant was exploratory surgery.<\/p>\n

Bench kept it to himself and played the rest of the season and postseason, including a tying ninth-inning home run in a winner-take-all Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, knowing potential life-altering surgery was scheduled for December.<\/p>\n

There was no such thing as arthroscopic surgery in 1972. The best the doctors could do for the famous ballplayer and his chances to play again in a best-case outcome was to limit the massive length of incision \u2013 to a foot or more around his chest to his back (instead of all the way to his neck), through bone, muscle and nerves.<\/p>\n

The lesion was benign. And Bench lives a healthy life on a golf course to this day with his family.<\/p>\n

But Bench can never know what might have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always describe greatness as here,\u201d he said, holding his hands up, a few inches apart. \u201cThat\u2019s the difference in greatness. That\u2019s the ball being hit here or out here. Because I could get to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After recovering from the invasive, damaging surgery, \u201cI was much shorter” to get to the ball, Bench said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was good,\u201d he added. \u201cBut it was never Johnny Bench anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Perez on Johnny Bench: ‘He was the best’<\/p>\n

Good? Bench made nine more All-Star appearances, including the following season (amid occasional boos as he struggled to compete again). He won five more Gold Gloves, had two more top-4 MVP finishes, another top-10, four more 100-RBI seasons and was the World Series MVP in 1976.<\/p>\n

Bench finished his career with single-season and career records for home runs for a catcher. But the days of 40 homers were gone well before he had a chance to leverage his athletic prime. Bench hit 30 twice after the surgery.<\/p>\n

Insane? That Bench accomplished what he did after the surgery might be as impressive as any of the unicorn stuff he did at 19 or in his early 20s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nobody knows more than Bench what he lost on that operating table. And nobody knows more than Reds teammates how much they needed what he gave them after that as that team went from Big Red Machine in name only to the two-time champion that secured its place in history.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny was the captain, not only with the pitchers,\u201d Perez said. \u201cJohnny was the guy Sparky (Anderson) gave the signs to, so Johnny was the captain of the infield. He was great.”<\/p>\n

Perez added: “People ask me, ‘Who\u2019s the best catcher you\u2019ve seen?’ Johnny Bench. I know a lot of good ones. A lot of guys are great. I played with him, and he was the best.”<\/p>\n

Even if Bench knows he never was able to reach the career ceiling the pre-surgery years promised.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not egotistical. You could talk about this or that or whatever, but I\u2019ll always talk about the team first,\u201d Bench said. \u201cIndividually, I had a thing called inner conceit. I was better than the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That much was clear when Bench was 19 and challenged veteran pitchers as a rookie when they didn\u2019t have their best stuff or tried to shake him off. Or told the manager, Dave Bristol, that same season he needed to move up to cleanup for a team that wasn\u2019t driving in enough runs.<\/p>\n

When Bench hit that playoff home run off the Pirates\u2019 Dave Guisti to help send the Reds to the 1972 World Series even as he wondered if he had lung cancer. And when Bench hit three home runs and drove in 10 across 11 World Series games to help win back-to-back championships years after the surgery stole so much of his power.<\/p>\n

Because when the moment was big, Bench still believed he was bigger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was where I wanted it,\u201d he said. \u201cPete would always say, ‘You could hit .300.’ I\u2019d say, ‘You hit .300, I\u2019ll drive you in 100 times.’ That\u2019s what I lived for. I was cocky. That\u2019s what it is. It\u2019s all confidence.”<\/p>\n

High school tragedy molds Bench<\/p>\n

The funeral for teammates lost in the bus crash was held at the school auditorium in Binger, Oklahoma, in April 1964.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t go close to a casket,\u201d Bench said.<\/p>\n

Bench hurt his shoulder in the rollover of the bus carrying the Binger High baseball team. He also helped save a teammate by following advice he remembered from his dad, who had driven a truck, to get to the floor of the bus, pulling the other boy with him.<\/p>\n

Bench was 16, a junior in high school, his life full of possibility, his mind filled with questions impossible to answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became very phlegmatic in a lot of ways, I guess,\u201d he said. \u201cI realize that these things are going to happen in our lives. And what we have to do and how we have to handle it after that is the way we turn our lives into what we need to be.”<\/p>\n

And then came the night barely two years later when the headlights of a drunk driver in one of those big Oldsmobile 98\u2019s sped toward Bench\u2019s Ford Galaxie 500 on the wrong side of a four-lane highway.<\/p>\n

Bench swerved, and the next thing he remembers was waking up as he was rolled into the ambulance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctor said, ‘Son, you\u2019ve got the biggest bones I\u2019ve ever seen in my life. You\u2019re the only person I know who could ever walk out of here. But you\u2019re going to pay the price,’ ” Bench said.<\/p>\n

Bench\u2019s car was totaled, his body intact. His character galvanized by a stolid, stoic outlook that belied his youth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became a fatalist in some ways,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s just what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife happens. And life doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparky Anderson found ally in catcher<\/p>\n

By the time Sparky Anderson got the Reds job as a no-name, first-time big-league manager ahead of the 1970 season he found what might have been the ideal ally on his roster in the toughened, tested, \u201ccocky,\u201d All-Star, \u201cground-breaking\u201d catcher.<\/p>\n

A uniquely equipped, emotionally mature, young leader at the forefront of what became a four-man Alpha-dog crew that also included Perez, Rose and Morgan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set a standard,\u201d Bench said. \u201cNot only professionalism but being on the field and the way we managed ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson identified Bench immediately, bringing him into the fold for team decisions from in-game pitching moves to personnel decisions.<\/p>\n

In turn, Bench\u2019s first message to Anderson when he got the job: \u201cI said, \u2018You keep your feet out of the aisles on the plane and don\u2019t trip anybody, and we\u2019ll make you a star,\u2019 \u201cBench said.<\/p>\n

Anderson used to tell that story more colorfully.<\/p>\n

Whatever the language in the moment, it speaks to a relationship that grew beyond any Anderson had with his players, the running joke around the team that they were more father and son than manager and player.<\/p>\n

Never mind that Bench\u2019s prophecy came true.<\/p>\n

\u201cSparky was my mentor, my friend,\u201d Bench said.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be a key building block to the ascension of a team that went from broken October promises in the late 1960s and early \u201870s into a team for the ages in the mid-70s.<\/p>\n

Bench set a tone as much as anyone on that team for cool in the heat of the brightest stages, reinventing himself as a player in his mid-20s even after reinventing the position to suit his strengths, and, mostly, by playing whether creeping arthritis, bone chips or a the powerful shoulder barked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe definition of a leader is somebody that is on the field, is on time, doesn\u2019t ask for any other quarter,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when it was time to be on the field, Pete, Joe, Tony and myself were there. If we were on the field, they had to be on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bench set standard for MLB catchers<\/p>\n

Until Bench started one-handing the position \u2013 while still finding a way to get rid of the ball quickly enough to throw out baserunners more often than his peers \u2013 young catchers were taught to keep the throwing hand close to the mitt and to block pitches in the dirt with their bodies and chest protectors. That meant shifting their bodies to get in front of outside pitches in the dirt, not backhand them.<\/p>\n

And the brighter his star got, the more Bench aggravated a generation of coaches trying to teach young catchers.<\/p>\n

Not to mention the occasional NBC broadcaster with big-league catching pedigree.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Joe) Garagiola said I was going to ruin catching,\u201d Bench said. \u201cBecause, well, yeah, I backhanded balls out of the dirt. I didn\u2019t block them. But I was so good at it. It was just a natural instinct.\u201d<\/p>\n

And ambitious young catchers across the country watched with wide eyes, eager to follow. And ignore their coaches.<\/p>\n

Bochy, the four-time World Series-champion manager who grew up in Florida and caught for parts of nine seasons in the majors in the late 1970s and 1980s, said he skipped classes in high school during spring training to go watch Bench play.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny was the guy,” Bochy said. “I was a big Reds fan, a huge Johnny Bench fan. He probably inspired me as much as anybody to catch and wanting to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melvin, the Giants manager, said: \u201cJohnny Bench was everything to me. Every glove I had growing up was a Rawlings Johnny Bench glove.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a Tigers rookie for Sparky Anderson in 1985, Melvin got his first start in Seattle, and while game-planning with Anderson and starting pitcher Walt Terrell that afternoon, Bench showed up to talk to Anderson ahead of a national radio broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my first big-league game, and all I can do is just look at Johnny Bench,\u201d Melvin said. \u201cI don\u2019t even think I heard the scouting report. That\u2019s how much of a Johnny Bench fan I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missing the scouting report wasn\u2019t as costly as it could have been, Melvin said, because the veteran Terrell called his own game, and the Tigers won.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat game for me. I got a couple of hits,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, I impressed Johnny Bench that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the impact Bench had on catchers then, and to this day.<\/p>\n

Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson has a framed, signed Bench jersey in his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor just to have been able to meet him and play in the same organization as him,\u201d Stephenson said.<\/p>\n

The position continues to evolve long after Bench\u2019s 1983 retirement, with methods for pitch framing and recently popularized down-on-one-knee defensive stance.<\/p>\n

In fact, he might have been one of the first to do that, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did that about my third game (in the minors). I got on my knee in Tampa, Florida, because the other catcher had gotten down on one knee,\u201d Bench said. \u201cBecause the umpire\u2019s always yelling at you, \u2018Get lower! Get lower!\u2019 Hell, I got big thighs. So I put my knee on the ground for a pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I come back to the dugout and (manager) Jack Cassini said, \u2018Don\u2019t ever do that again! That makes you look lazy! I never want to see that again!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was good because I couldn\u2019t get up and down like that anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk about a legacy that continues as an unbroken thread more than a half-century later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was so much mystique around him,\u201d said Wilson, who had the chance to meet Bench as a young catcher coming through the Reds system. \u201cTo be able to have a conversation \u2013 even just to meet him \u2013 was huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ‘bridge’ that Bench built<\/p>\n

Sit down for any length of time for a conversation with Bench and, as one writer put it, he might start to interview you.<\/p>\n

On one recent morning, as the talk explored career, life, mortality and legacy, Bench recited favorite lines from a poem about the impermanence of fame and talked about the power of support systems and mentorship, even beyond baseball \u2013 within family and an eclectic circle of friends.<\/p>\n

Then he quoted from the century-old poem, \u201cThe Bridge Builder\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the dusk he crossed the swirling stream and when he got to the other side he built a bridge to come across.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest of the parable insinuates the value of a bridge the builder will never use, having already crossed the stream.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at guys and how they catch, and certainly the way they move the ball now,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cNone of that would be possible without Johnny. There are rare athletes that change the game, and Johnny was certainly one of those that changed the game for catchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been almost 60 years since that last broken thumb. Fifty years since the Big Red Machine\u2019s success secured a place in national sports folklore for Bench and the rest of that team.<\/p>\n

And they still talk about what a kid from Binger did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI built a good bridge,\u201d Bench said.<\/p>\n

This story is part of an ongoing Enquirer series this summer examining the legacy of the Big Red Machine 50 years after the first of back-to-back World Series titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench transformed the catcher position. Babe Ruth’s 1927 Yankees? Forget it, Cincinnati Reds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,489,535,50,4259,481,4,306,319,1174,1182,829,1219,536,1230,1646,482,185,1645,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-104924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-central","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-cincinnatireds","13":"tag-content","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-national","16":"tag-national-sports","17":"tag-oh","18":"tag-oh-content-sharing-reds-central","19":"tag-pete","20":"tag-pete-rose","21":"tag-reds","22":"tag-rose","23":"tag-series","24":"tag-sharing","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114685752579855804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}