JOHNNY BENCH
Grassroots to the Pros
To be honest, I’m not used to batting last. But given the lineup card in this book, I can’t really complain. Plus, I get to be on the receiving end of pitches thrown by the greatest arms of their time.
So, in a way, this is right where I always wanted to be, at home plate, holding the ball after the last out. This is a book devoted to the grassroots of baseball, and I have a deep appreciation for where I got my start: Binger, Oklahoma, population 672 today, and 660 when I grew up there. I used to joke that Binger was two-and-a-half miles beyond “Resume Speed,” but I’m not joking when I say that the road that goes north through Binger—US 281—took me to Cincinnati and Cooperstown.
What can I tell you about Binger? It’s at the junction of Routes 281 and 152, 56 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, and it’s the home of the Caddo Nation of Native Americans—I have a little Indian blood in me. Peanuts and cotton are our big agricultural crops. My parents, Katy and Ted, raised four of us kids. Dad drove a truck for a propane gas company. He was a very good semipro catcher in his day and dreamed of playing in the big leagues. But then the War came along, and he had to serve two hitches.
One day, when I was about 4 years old, my dad and I were watching The Game of the Week on television, and the announcer said, “Now batting, the next superstar, the switch-hitting center fielder from Oklahoma, Mickey Mantle.” I looked at my dad and said, “You can be from Oklahoma and play in the major leagues? That’s what I want to do.” My father, who had my dream once, said that catching was the quickest way to the bigs because that’s what they needed.
My dad started a Little League team when I was 6 years old. We rode around in a pickup truck and knocked on doors to find enough players to field a team. No uniforms, just Levis and T-shirts. We’d go out and lose, and my dad would say, “That’s okay, we’ll get them tomorrow. Let’s go have a cheeseburger.” Foster’s Dairy Queen was the place.
Well, we played and played and got better and better. At the end of the year, we played a team that was undefeated, and we beat ’em. The other team’s kids were all crying. I asked my dad what was wrong, and he said, “Nothing, son—they haven’t learned how to lose yet. Now let’s go have a cheeseburger.”
A lot of us have similar stories about standing up in school, telling classmates they want to be major leaguers when they grow up, and hearing everybody laugh at their dreams. I first heard the laughter in second grade. But that didn’t stop me from practicing my autograph. When my eighth grade teacher, Frances Tate, asked me what I wanted to be, and I said major league player, they laughed again, and I couldn’t blame them. I was only 5’2”. I had size 11 ½ feet, with the same hand and head size I do now. The only people interested in scouting me were Barnum & Bailey.
By the time the 11th grade rolled around at Binger High, and I told Mr. Rhodes and my classmates of my dream, the laughter had died down. The funny thing was, I hadn’t done much catching because I was too busy pitching. I went something like 84-3 and we won the state championship. But the scouts knew I wanted to be a catcher, so I would take infield practice so they could check out my arm. When I was drafted by the Reds in the second round of the ’65 draft, I was 17 years old and the class valedictorian—hey, it was a small class. The Reds assigned me to Tampa, which meant I had to get on an airplane for the very first time in my life.
I had no idea the Hall of Fame was waiting for me, especially after the Reds called me up at the end of the ’67 season, and I hit .163 in 26 games. But I was the Rookie of the Year the next year, and the folks back in Oklahoma staged a Johnny Bench Day to celebrate my homecoming. Sports Illustrated did a story on me—"The Big Zinger from Binger,” they called it.
I played 17 seasons for the Reds, made 14 All-Star Games, won 10 Gold Gloves, two MVPs, and, most importantly, two World Series with the best manager, Sparky Anderson, and the best teammates you could ever ask for. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still see myself hitting rocks from our driveway.
How much does my hometown mean to me? Well, the middle name of my son Bobby, who was born in 1989, the same year I was inducted into the Hall of Fame, is Binger. He’s a grown man now, and a couple of years ago, he did a wonderful thing. There’s actually a Johnny Bench Museum in Binger, right next to City Hall, and I had given the museum all the Gold Gloves I still had, which was six. Well, Bobby Binger Bench tracked down the other four so that the museum could have a complete set.
It’s not the Hall of Fame, but if you’re ever driving through southwestern Oklahoma and you see a sign, Binger: Home of Johnny Bench, feel free to check out the museum. There’s some pretty cool stuff in there, including my high school uniform, my Reds jersey, photos of me when the circus was interested, and my third grade report card—all As. They even have my high school sports diary. This is from 1965:
“We met Dewey and won 3-1 for the State Championship. I pitched 1 hitter.”
As you can tell, I was quite the wordsmith. But then, words still can’t express how much Binger means to me. By the way, if you’re hungry when you’re done with the museum, walk down Main Street to Crainco, and go have a cheeseburger.
