Johnny Bench is arguably the best catcher to play the game of baseball. During a 16-year career, Bench set a standard that will probably never be eclipsed.
He was National League Rookie of the Year in 1968, the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1970 and 1972, and a World Series MVP in 1976.
Bench also won 10 Gold Gloves as an anchor of a Cincinnati Reds team that won back-to-back World Series titles in 1975-76. The leader of The Big Red Machine, he was named to baseball’s All-Century Team in 1999.
On Tuesday, Bench, 63, was the feature speaker for the fall meeting of The Hickory Sportsman’s Club.
Before speaking, Bench sat down with Record Sports Correspondent Paul Fogleman to reflect on his career, discuss his sometimes icy relationship with Reds teammate Pete Rose and offer his thoughts on the state of baseball today.
Q. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 30 years since you called it a career in 1983. What did you do after your retirement and how are you keeping active these days?
A. I’m not retired. I’ve just changed jobs. I was a spokesperson for a bank in Cincinnati for 37 years, and now that I’ve had both of my hips replaced I actually travel all around the country.
I’ve done about 30 events this year for Stryker Corporation. I had one hip replaced in 2004 and the left one in 2010, and it was the newest of technology, so I’m going around and just sort of introducing it to doctors.
At the rate my body’s going, the warranty’s running out on all these parts. Plus I’ve got a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, which also keeps me pretty busy. It’s a great life.
Q. Now let’s talk a little baseball. Three games left in the Series. Who do you like?
A. Who did I think would win the Series? The Rangers would. Who do I want to win? The Cardinals because I’m a National League guy.
Josh Hamilton was part of the Reds ball club, and just looking at St. Louis they really had an unbelievable run, and now their pitching is not quite holding up.
Throughout the playoffs, they got away with a lot with offense. It’s one-run games in a lot of instances. Any hitting (Monday) night by the Cardinals would have just blown it wide open.
(Matt) Holliday still is not a 100 percent healthy, but (the Rangers) are pitching better and six games looks like it could be it.
But the Cardinals are going back home, and it makes for a great opportunity for them.
Q. You are almost unanimously considered by baseball historians to be the greatest catcher of all time. You are the standard catchers today still aspire to be. As you were coming along, though, was there anyone you modeled your game after?
A. No one. Mickey Mantle was my idol, so I always wanted to be a center fielder. I certainly couldn’t have done that, I didn’t have the speed or anything else.
My dad always explained to me that catching was what the major leagues needed, and it was the quickest way to the major leagues.
I started out with a round glove and then broke my thumb twice, and that’s when I went to a one-handed glove.
I have a book called “Catch Every Ball: How to Handle Life’s Pitches” and basically you have to learn to do it yourself. You can’t do it like anybody else because I’m not built like everybody else. I tell young kids just go out and try to catch every ball you can.
You’ll develop your own style. You know, Ozzie (Smith) learned it at shortstop and people learn it in businesses. Pretty soon, if you learn to catch every ball people are going to say ‘Boy, he’s a great catcher.’
And then to get the status like a Hall of Fame status, you have to put a lot of numbers on the board also.
Q. You’re remembered as one of the anchors of the Big Red Machine. In fact, many consider the teams that captured World Series titles in 1975 and 1976 possibly the greatest collection of talent assembled on one team.
Thirty-five years have passed since that second Series championship, but where do rank that team when considering baseball’s greatest squads?
A. You know, what does it matter? People are going to think of us as they want to.
When Ken Burns did the “Baseball” thing, it was all Red Sox and Yankees, so there’s no other place on the planet (baseball’s) played but up in the Northeast.
For me, it’s a lot of satisfaction that our ball club was second to none. It was an incredible ball club assembled by four of the greatest players to play the game and then four guys who when you start to mention their names everybody says ‘Oh my gosh.’
No matter where you go, people -- whether they were Red Sox fans or whether they were Dodgers fans or Cubs fans -- they’d say ‘Boy did I respect you guys.’
And they knew the names of all eight players.
Q. Recently you were the first of the Great Eight to be honored with a statue outside of the Great American Ballpark (the Cincinnati Reds home).
It must have been a thrill to be the first from that group to receive such an honor?
A. Inside the Reds museum we have statues of the eight. They’re about life-sized all standing like celebrating coming off the field after our first World Series victory.
They came to me and said they want to put a statue of me up. I said I want all four of us up (Bench, Peter Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez). The only way I wanted to do it was with the other four.
They said, ‘We’re going to put yours up, and we’d like to have your assistance and help.’ I said as long as you guarantee me the other three will be up and they said ‘OK, we guarantee it.’
It’s one of the greatest honors that anybody can have. It’s an unbelievable honor because people forever will be able to go by, and it’s a great, great piece of art.
I’m proud of it, and now everybody will be able to go by and they’ll tell stories and take pictures with their kids and grandkids and stuff. It’s an unbelievable honor and once the other three are up it will be perfect.
Q. One of those three will be Pete Rose, a person who you had a frigid relationship with for two decades but now it seems things have thawed between the two of you.
How has it been mending fences with baseball’s career hits leader over the past couple of years?
A. The other day I sent to text to him, and we text each other back and forth. He wanted to apologize, and because I had to live with (the Rose question) for 21 years, and now we’re into this year and people are still asking the question.
It’s like when is it gong to be done? When is a life sentence a life sentence? It’s up to Pete (regarding the Hall of Fame).
As I told him, ‘All I ever wanted you to do is get help.’
I got buried because I said certain statements. It was more about my Hall of Fame year when people were saying, ‘Congratulations on the Hall of Fame. What about Pete?’
It’s all about Pete. It’s still the Big Red Machine. It’s still the team we had on the field.
It’s good to have a relationship with Pete , and you know, when you get to be 70 all of a sudden you start to look back and maybe atone for some of the things that have happened in my life.
Q. Speaking of the Hall of Fame, baseball has just come through the era of performance enhancing drugs. Alex Rodriguez has admitted to using steroids, and it’s widely assumed Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens were users as well. Do you consider those guys Hall of Fame worthy?
A. We know a lot of the guys who took some of the juice. You see, I blame it on the trainers. I think that when (players) started getting the money, and they wanted to stay in shape, they wanted to work out. They got their own personal trainers.
I call it the Blender Era. Guys started working out and they stayed working out all winter. We never worked out. They said, ‘OK, we’re going to build some muscle and we’re going to do some protein and we’re going to do some stuff.’
You know, they go to GNC which now we know has lots of HGH and everything else and they got stronger and bigger. … I think the naivety of the players themselves created a lot of that.
Then it was the money, because if I hit 10 home runs this year and 40 home runs the next year, all of a sudden I get a contract for three years for 45 million or 40 million dollars.
There’s no way around the fact that these numbers have skewed the way a lot of people look at us. We shouldn’t be amazed that people are hitting 50, 60 (home runs), pitchers have gotten better, pitchers have gotten stronger.
It’s just a great game still. I don’t have a vote in the Hall of Fame. They will be judged by the sportswriters. They will make that decision, and whether it’s right or wrong, they believe in the state of baseball and how it should be.
Q. You’re visiting today at a site that has hosted a Champions Tour event for the past nine years. Many people may not remember that you were a good enough golfer to take part in several Tour events.
How did you fare in the tournaments you played, and any thoughts to making it a full-time gig?
I finished 37th (at a tourney) in Cincinnati, and I got some great responses from a lot of tournament directors. They knew I wasn’t going to compete, but the fact is I did a lot for the pro-ams, I brought people into the tournaments.
Then my hip went, and I was of no use. My back has always been bad, I was in a car wreck when I was young, and so the warranties run out on the parts and everything else, and I’d just like to get back to playing good golf.
I could play at that time, but I knew what I was doing in baseball. I didn’t know so much with golf.
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