by Jim Brady

Created on: July 14, 2009   Last Updated: July 15, 2009

The memory of Pearl Harbor was fresh and raw in Oklahoma City on December 7, 1947. Baseball, as the National Pastime, was playing its part in healing the nation that created it, but little did anyone realize on that day of remembrance, as the Bench family welcomed its new addition, that little Johnny Lee would rise from that day of infamy to his game's greatest fame.

It is hard to believe today, when his name is a virtual synonym for Big League catching, but there was a time when Johnny Bench was not an icon. That time didn't last long. By 1966, when he was an 18-year old catcher for Peninsula in the Carolina League, he was already the stuff of legend. In 98 games that year, he hit 22 home runs, a feat so remarkable his uniform was promptly retired. Which was OK, because at the rate Johnny Bench was progressing, he had no use for it the next season, anyway. In 1967, he came up to the "big club", the only one he would ever play for, the Cincinnati Reds.

The last noise the Reds had made in the National League was in 1961, when they won the pennant and were rewarded with a seven-game dance with the Home Run Derby Yankees, who were coming off a season when their two biggest hitters, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, hit 120 homeruns between them. Maris had capped off the regular season by breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record in the very last game. That World Series, however, was short and perfunctory, The Yankees won four of five, battering the Reds' vaunted pitching staff in the process, avenging the last-pitch loss they had suffered in the previous World Series, and giving the Reds a nine-year wait for their next shot at the championship. When they showed up again, Johnny Bench would be behind the plate.

As early as Spring Training 1968, the word was out about Bench. No less an observer than Ted Williams, he of the sharp eyesight and sharper tongue, autographed a baseball for Bench. Williams, never one for speeches, minced no words. "To Johnny Bench," he wrote, "A Hall of Famer for sure."

For the next 17 seasons, Bench took the straight route to Cooperstown, excelling at almost everything he did. He started off by being named Rookie of the Year. Catching one-handed, and using one of the first hinged mitts, he quickly sent a message to base runners that second base shouldn't be in their plans if they had, by some stroke of sheer luck, managed to get to first. Bolting upright during such a transgression, he would transfer the baseball effortlessly

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