Johnny Bench gets rings back

[TJDave]

Auction winner returning items to Cincinnati Reds legend Johnny Bench

“I am truly stunned by Alan's generous gesture and am grateful and proud that these trophies and memorabilia pieces will be on display for millions of fans to experience," Bench said. "Alan's only request was to meet my boys, which will happen as soon as we can resume safe travel."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...d-johnny-bench

[JustRalph]

He cannot be too much of a friend of Bench's if he has never met his kids.........

Hell of a gesture

Johnny Bench one of my BRM heroes. If he hadn't had the tumor in his lungs he would have been even better or lasted longer at the top.

Pete Rose says he might be the greatest baseball player he ever saw. That's pretty high praise

[TJDave]

IMO, Best catcher ever. Yogi might have had better stats but Johnny could call a game better than anyone.

Johnny used to live in Rancho Mirage and would frequent a hole-in-the-wall hamburger joint in Cathedral City where he would hold court and tell stories, sometimes for hours. Funniest guy in baseball and a down-to-earth humble guy. Never forgot his Oklahoma roots. In my book he’s all aces.

[lamboguy]

the whole big red machine was great....in 1975 the year they won the world series, and that was probably the greatest series of all time.. both squads were excellent.. Bill Lee decided to throw Tony Perez the eephus pitch and Tony deposited that baseball right in the left field net to cut the Sox lead to 1. then the Reds eventually came back and went ahead with Gullet pitching.

i had my whole bankroll that i made scalping tickets that year on that world series and i though i was dead meat. i was laying 2-1 on the Reds, and i got the cash..

believe it or not, the Red Sox turned out to be just as great as the Reds, but to this day we all think that the Reds were the greatest team of all time. i guess we think that way because the Reds wound up sweeping the Yankees the next year and the Red Sox were nowhere.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by TJDave

IMO, Best catcher ever. Yogi might have had better stats but Johnny could call a game better than anyone.

Sharp post Dave. You'd be surprised how many B-Ball fans don't even know what that means.

I tried to explain it to one of my employees once. He came back with

"so you are saying the catcher is like a quarterback? I don't get it"

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

Sharp post Dave. You'd be surprised how many B-Ball fans don't even know what that means.

I tried to explain it to one of my employees once. He came back with

"so you are saying the catcher is like a quarterback? I don't get it"

I strongly recommend the book Throwback, by Jason Kendall. As much as I thought I knew about baseball/ pitching / catching/ hitting, there's a lot more I learned by reading the book. Gives a very deep dive into catching and handling pitchers

FWIW, the best pitch caller I ever saw was Jim Sundberg. Great defensive skills & arm too (Rtot=114). The first year he caught for a team that wasn't dysfunctional, his team won a world series. The only George Brett era title for the Royals

Thurm Munson was at the top too. Very under rated

[TJDave]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

I strongly recommend the book Throwback, by Jason Kendall.

I remember the I-70 series well as I was at all seven games. Great pitching by Saberhagen.