Word: benching
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These days no one laughs at the Cincinnati Reds' Johnny Lee Bench, not even when he says he is going to be baseball's first $100,000-a-year catcher. Instead, rival managers laud him shamelessly. Chicago's Leo Durocher: "Bench is the greatest catcher since Gabby Hartnett." Montreal's Gene Mauch: "If I had my pick of any player in the league, Bench would be my first choice." Los Angeles' Walter Alston: "He'll be the All-Star catcher for the next ten years." Just 22, Johnny Lee does not take the high...
...Bench's success has come as easily and naturally as a second-grader's daydreams. Back in Binger, which he says is "two miles beyond Resume Speed," he was high school class valedictorian and an all-state basketball and baseball player. Since the Binger nine had only nine players, he shuttled between third base and the pitcher's mound, compiling a 16-1 record with "a lot of no-hitters." So why did he give up pitching for the less glamorous job of catching? "Maybe," he says, "it was because I hit .675 in high school...
Bazooka Pegs. There were no maybes as far as the Reds were concerned. They drafted Bench at 17 and put him right into their farm system. At Peninsula in the Carolina League, his uniform was retired after he broke the club's home-run record with 22 in 98 games. Moving up to Buffalo in 1967, he was named Minor League Player of the Year. The next season he became Cincinnati's No. 1 receiver and predicted that he would be the first catcher to win Rookie-of-the-Year honors. He did just that. Last year...
...typical court stenographer sits quietly below the bench, meticulously recording every spoken word. For all his importance, he is usually unnoticed...
Earlier, after a hard check had dumped Harvard's Ted Rumsey and knocked the wind out of him near one of the corners of the field, the Brown team rose from the bench and yelled ?? argument in that direction. "Way to get that pretty boy!" It was that type of afternoon...