Bench shares a life-changing moment that shaped his life, career

Long before Johnny Bench made magic with a wood bat in the Majors, he played baseball with an old taped-up bat that his dad would use to hit balls out in a cornfield in Binger, Okla.

That type of activity was 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 his senior year of high school that others on that bus did not -- and that both shook him and helped shape him in life.

• Top 10 moments of Johnny Bench's career

Because of a bit of inexplicable luck, Bench was able to continue his baseball journey, which reached its peak 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 told Jon Paul Morosi in 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 podcast, which airs weekly, focuses on the challenges and obstacles some of the game’s greatest players overcame on their way to reaching baseball’s highest honor. Bench’s story is particularly compelling, given events that took place just as he was about to begin his pro baseball career.

Bench, who starred with the Cincinnati Reds from 1967-83, did not know that someone from Oklahoma could become a Major Leaguer. It wasn’t until he was watching a game on TV when he realized his dream could come true.

“We’d watch the Game of the Week every Saturday,” he said 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 caught the eye of scouts in just two games. But his life changed after he survived the bus accident, months before the Reds selected him 36th overall in the second round of the 1965 Draft.

To this day, Bench still vividly remembers the accident. The brakes in the bus carrying the Binger High School baseball team had malfunctioned on their way back from a game.

“So we go down the hill -- and no brakes,” Bench recalled.

Bench remembered advice from his dad who was a gas-truck driver: When something like this happens, get on the floorboards. As soon as he realized the bus was not slowing down and was going to hit the guardrail, he jumped into action. His instinct was to save himself and others. He made his way to the floor and pulled his teammate David Gunter with him.

“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 recalled.

They survived the accident, but two of Bench’s teammates -- Harold Sims and Billy Joe Wylie -- were killed.

Memories of the accident have had a long-lasting impact on Bench. He said on the podcast that he became numb in a lot of ways. He added he considers himself a “fatalist” because of the crash.

But still, he became one of the greatest catchers in history.

Ten Gold Gloves, back-to-back World Series and two National League MVPs -- the list of Bench’s accolades is a long one. They are just byproducts of his resilience 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.’”

Visit baseballhall.org/podcast to hear this and all of the episodes of The Road to Cooperstown, a podcast from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and SiriusXM.