He wore a Reds baseball cap with his name stitched on the side in white block letters. That way, if he elected to throw his hat into the ring, there'd be no mistaking whose head it had been on.

Johnny Bench at groundbreaking of the Reds new ballpark. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

        Bench held on to his hat throughout the formalities — at least literally — but his interest in the Reds' managerial opening was undisguised. Seventeen years after his early retirement, Bench is intrigued by the idea of a return to the dugout and is therefore one of the more intriguing candidates available.

        If he's serious, Bench belongs on Jim Bowden's short list. Whether he's serious depends on when you talk to him.

Golf lagging
        “If I don't break par in the next three weeks, I'm going to take the job,” Bench joked as he studied a scale model of the new stadium. “My golf is so bad that I don't know what I'm going to do. There's a side of you that says you want to manage, but there would be a lot of good things that I would have to give up.”

        At least twice this week, Bench has told friends he was not interested in managing the Reds. Wednesday, however, he sounded like a guy who wanted to be wooed. Though he remains leery of baseball's daily grind, Bench's Senior PGA sabbatical did not produce much in the way of weekly paychecks. His career earnings on the senior tour total $6,446, which is less than some guys spend on cart fees. He has made $16,404 this season in six events on the Celebrity Players Tour, but this hardly constitutes a career. If Bench still craves competition, baseball is his best arena.

        “I think a lot of people overlook his love affair with the Cincinnati Reds,” said Reuven Katz, Bench's attorney and confidant. “If he were asked to (manage), I would guess he might give it serious consideration.”

Experience preferred
        The prospect of Bench the manager poses a dubious double threat: potentially expensive, demonstrably inexperienced. He has yet to manage at any level of organized baseball and might be prone to the problem common among Hall of Fame players: unreasonable standards for mere mortals.

        “Sparky (Anderson) told me, "You should never manage,'” Bench said Wednesday. “He said, "Great players should never be booed, and you know you're going to get booed if you're a manager.'”

        Because Bench was a great player — the All-Century catcher — he should command some respect from the players. In the political snake- pit that is the Reds organization, that ought to count for something. Picking a lineup and assembling a pitching staff are barely half the battle in modern baseball. The manager who can't placate his star players won't survive.

        “I think if you've got a good ballclub that knows what they're doing, there are probably about six or seven games in a season where your manager can make a difference,” Bench said. “The manager's job is to make people feel good about coming to the ballpark, excited to play and believing they have a chance of winning.”

        Whether Johnny Bench is the right man for that job is speculative. That he ought to be interviewed is obvious.

        E-mail: tsullivan@enquirer.com.

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