Bench Bests Berra in Blasts
Some Hall of Fame catchers earn their plaque behind the plate. Johnny Bench made a convincing case while standing at it.
Bench debuted as the Cincinnati Reds’ backstop in 1967, a year that was quickly followed by a National League Rookie of the Year campaign in 1968. In 1970 and 1972, he would earn NL Most Valuable Player Awards, complemented by 10 consecutive Gold Glove Award seasons between 1968 and 1977. Red looked good on Bench; he remained in Cincinnati for the length of his 17-season career, notably driving the 1970s Big Red Machine to four NL pennants and back-to-back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976.
Bench didn’t just receive pitches – he also liked to crush them. Leading the league twice in home runs and three times in RBI, the catcher wasn’t afraid to get a look at the diamond from the bases. Or while he was rounding them.
Prior to the Reds’ July 15, 1980, game against the Montreal Expos, Bench was tied with the Yankees’ Yogi Berra for home runs while in the lineup as a catcher: 313. Both known for their long tenures with their clubs and for revolutionizing the role of the catcher, Bench and Berra shared a host of similarities. In the fifth inning in Cincinnati, however, Bench set himself apart.
The catcher was primed by a set of productive at-bats from his teammates. With the game tied at four in the bottom of the inning with two outs, Dave Concepción and Ken Griffey laced a pair of singles to the outfield, then scored on a home run by George Foster. Ray Knight’s follow-up single put one on for Bench’s trip to the plate.
Bench was 0-for-2 on the day with a groundout and flyball to that point against Expos starter David Palmer, and the pressure was beginning to build. He told the Associated Press that the most difficult feat of the game “was the long walk to the plate every time with the crowd cheering for [him] to set the new record.”
By his third plate appearance, Bench said he was ready to “get it over with.”
And get it over he did. Knocking one over the left field wall at Riverfront Stadium, Bench knew he had moved into a league of his own.
“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was gone,” he told United Press International. “I don’t even know where I threw my bat, but I knew I jumped high in the air.”
Bench’s historic day at the plate would be completed by an emotive lap around the bases, a trip to the box seats to kiss his mother, a 90-second standing ovation and a final bow by the Reds dugout.
And, of course, a Yogi-ism from Berra himself.
“Johnny, congratulations on breaking my home run record last night,” Berra said the following day in a telegram to Bench. “I always thought the record would stand until it was broken.”
Bench’s record was eventually surpassed by Carlton Fisk and later Mike Piazza, both of whom joined Bench and Berra as Hall of Famers.
Abbey Dempsey is the 2026 communications intern in the Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Leadership Development
