Long before Johnny Bench made his mark in the Major Leagues, he played baseball with an old taped-up bat that his father would use to hit balls in a cornfield in Binger, Oklahoma.
Such activities were common for kids his age, but what happened to him just as he was about to enter adulthood was anything but typical. Bench survived a bus accident during his senior year of high school, while others on that bus did not. This incident both shook him and helped shape his life.
Due to a stroke of unexpected luck, Bench was able to continue his baseball journey, ultimately reaching the pinnacle when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.
“I wanted to be the best, there wasn’t anything about that,” he said in an interview with Jon Paul Morosi on The Road to Cooperstown Podcast. “I was going to be the best. That was my sole purpose … to be on the field and be the very best baseball player I could be.”
The Hall of Fame’s weekly podcast highlights the challenges and obstacles faced by some of the game’s greatest players on their way to reaching baseball’s highest honor. Bench’s story is especially captivating, considering the events that unfolded just as he was starting his pro baseball career.
Johnny Bench, who excelled with the Cincinnati Reds from 1967 to 1983, did not initially believe that someone from Oklahoma could become a Major Leaguer. It wasn’t until he was watching a game on TV that he realized his dream could actually be possible.
“We’d watch the Game of the Week every Saturday,” Bench recounted to Morosi. “We’re watching and the announcer comes on and says, ‘Now batting, the switch-hitting center fielder from Oklahoma, Mickey Mantle.’ And I looked at my dad and said, ‘You can be from Oklahoma and play in the Major Leagues?!’”
In high school, Bench attracted the attention of scouts after just two games. However, his life took a dramatic turn after surviving a bus accident just months before the Reds chose him 36th overall in the second round of the 1965 Draft.
To this day, Bench vividly recalls the accident, where the brakes in the bus carrying the Binger High School baseball team malfunctioned on their return from a game.
“So we go down the hill — and no brakes,” Bench remembered.
He drew upon advice from his father, a gas truck driver: when facing such a situation, “get on the floorboards.” As soon as he realized the bus wouldn’t slow down and was about to hit the guardrail, he sprang into action. His instinct was to save both himself and his teammate, David Gunter.
“We rolled over three times, and I can still see the guys tumbling in the bus, and my feet were hanging out the back door when we came to a stop,” Bench recounted.
While they survived, two of Bench’s teammates — Harold Sims and Billy Joe Wylie — lost their lives in the crash.
Memories of the accident have profoundly affected Bench. He shared on the podcast that he became numb in many ways and considers himself a “fatalist” due to the crash.
Yet, despite this traumatic experience, he went on to become one of the greatest catchers in history. With ten Gold Gloves, back-to-back World Series titles, and two National League MVPs, the accolades that define Bench are a testament to his resilience both on and off the field.
The 1972 season stands out the most to Bench. He won his second NL MVP that year, but he played knowing he would have to undergo surgery to remove a lesion from his lung during the offseason.
“It’s kind of like Conway Twitty said, ‘That’s my job,’” he said. “That’s what I do. And the uncertainty of it all … they didn’t know at the time what it was until they removed it. So my job every day was to be in the lineup. You didn’t ask questions except if you weren’t in the lineup, you wanted to know why not. So my job was to go out there.”
He recovered from the surgery and played until he retired in 1983. Six years later, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, as a first-ballot selection. Having been in Cooperstown, Bench began his own tradition with the new inductees.
“I have a thing out on the veranda that I started many years ago,” he said. “I grab each inductee and I have them sit in the rocker next to me. I say, ‘I want you to take a minute now and look over Lake Otsego. I want you to look at that and just think about what you’ve achieved. There’s nobody to worry about now, all the people are gone and we’re in our private area.’ I say, ‘We have that moment, and I want you to think about what you’ve achieved. You’re a Hall of Famer.’”
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