Johnny Bench "This is your Life" 1972

[757690]

Variety shows were king at that time on TV. It seemed he was on them all. Very few other athletes at that time had the popularity that Bench had.

He was everywhere, doing everything…

[marcshoe]

And it was another year or two thousand before Freddy Kendall got his own episode. Funny, that's the first thing I thought of. I haven't rewatched it yet, but the second had to do with Bench's "hands" saving a guys life.

[RedsBaron]

He was everywhere, doing everything…

Thanks! I knew Bench had sung on "Hee Haw" and I had a vague recollection of seeing him do so. The clip surprised me in a way. Johnny wasn't a great singer, and being a singer certainly wasn't his career path, but I was expecting him to be horrid, and he wasn't. He carried the tune. I'll put it this way: The gap between Johnny Bench and me as a singer was almost as big as the gap between he and I as ballplayers.
Johnny really was everywhere in his prime. He and Pete Rose were rivals for publicity, which helped drive the semi-feud they had then.

[GAC]

Don Zimmer was never so thin. LOL

[GAC]

[BUTLER REDSFAN]

Saw him recently on old episode of mission impossible