The Little General

In the second grade in Binger, Okla., they asked us what we wanted to be. Some said they wanted to be a farmer. Some said rancher. Cowboy. I said I wanted to be a ballplayer, and they laughed. In the eighth grade they asked the same question, and I said ballplayer and they laughed a little more. By the eleventh grade they weren't laughing.

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 praise too seriously. He merely agrees.

Why not? 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 he knocked in 90 runs, hit .293 and was named the league's All-Star catcher. After a slow start, Bench so far this season has hit five home runs to help the Reds to a runaway lead in the National League's Western Division, with a 16-6 record.

For all his prowess at the plate, Bench is also the best defensive receiver in the league. At 6 ft. 1 in. and 197 Ibs., he is well equipped for the rigors of the trade. He can smother wild pitches with either of his oversized hands, and his bazooka-like pegs prove his pronouncement that "I can throw out any base runner alive." The St. Louis Cardinals' Lou Brock did not believe it until he tried to run on Bench last season and stretch his skein of 21 consecutive stolen bases. End of skein.

Against the Dodgers one day, Bench picked a runner off second, cut down another at third, and then, fielding a perfectly executed bunt, rocketed a throw to first to end the inning. Part Choctaw Indian, Bench keeps the Reds hustling with his war whoops from behind the plate: "Hey, let's shake it up! What is this, a Sunday school picnic!" Dubbed the "Little General" by teammates, he is equally adept at the subtle art of handling pitchers. "I'm about ten years older than Johnny," says the Reds' Jim Maloney, "yet he'll come out to the mound and chew me out as if I were a two-year-old. So help me, this kid coaches me. And I like it."

Anxious to give Bench a rest from his catching chores, Reds' Manager Sparky Anderson plans to use him occasionally at third and first base. Watching Bench work out in the infield recently, Anderson sighed: "It's just pitiful that one man should have so much talent." Some fans wonder why the Reds do not use Johnny as a relief pitcher. "I guess they're afraid I'd jeopardize my arm," Bench says. Then, after a pause, he adds with typical aplomb: "But I bet you I could get 'em out."

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