Former Reds teammate Joe Morgan once described Johnny Bench as “bigger than life.” On Sept.17, 1983, Bench lived up to the billing once again.

        It was Johnny Bench Night at Riverfront Stadium. There were 53,290 fans in the stands, the biggest regular-season crowd in Reds history. His father, Ted, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Johnny remembered that when he was a boy, the longest home run he ever saw was hit by his father; the ball just kept going and landed in a cornfield.

        As a player, J.B. had a lot of the mythical in him, too.

        On Johnny Bench Night, the soon-to-be-retired star hit a game-tying, two-run home run and a single and threw out a would-be base stealer.

        It was the 389th and final home run of Bench's career.

        “I swung at a changeup (on the) first pitch and about fell on my head — I missed it (by) so far,” Bench later reminisced. “And then (came) a fastball (for a home run) ... Nothing gets bigger than that.”

        Twelve days later, he hit a two-run, pinch-hit single in his last at-bat at Riverfront and was gone.

Reds 9, Padres 0 Reds box, runs Reds Q&A Cinergy countdown - Sept. 17, 1983 Pain still afflicting Pineda Astros 8, Braves 5 Cardinals 5, Mets 4 Notes from Saturday's games John Fay's MLB power ratings Lieberthal hits three homers against Dodgers Little progress in labor talks Williams' son ends his baseball experiment Columbus 5, Louisville 2

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