By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Johnny Bench (left) and Tony Perez celebrate after Bench's heroics.
The Cincinnati Enquirer file
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It was 30 years ago.It might as well have been 300 years ago.
That is how much baseball's relationship with the fans has changed in only 1½ generations, especially in Cincinnati.
Here is the backdrop to Johnny Bench's ninth-inning home run that tied the final game of the National League Championship Series at Riverfront Stadium.
There were five - count 'em five - first-ballot Hall of Famers on the field that day, and one ninth-ballot Hall of Famer. For the Pirates, it was Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell. For the Reds, it was Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez (ninth ballot) and Pete Rose, who, had he not later been banned from baseball, would have been a first-ballot lock for Cooperstown.
The 1972 Reds team - even though it didn't go on to win the world championship (it lost in seven games to the Oakland A's) - was basically the same team that won consecutive world championships in 1975-76 and was proclaimed as second to only the 1927 New York Yankees as the greatest team of all time.For those Cincinnatians, especially the younger ones who weren't here then and the middle-aged, cynical ones who tire of all this "nostalgia" for the Big Red Machine, we have three words for you: Get over it.
These early-to-mid-1970s Reds teams really were that good.
It was the 1972 Reds who whetted the appetite - their own, and their fans' - for the world championships to come.
And for those Pete Rose diehards who think the sun rises and sets on No.14 to the point they rip anybody who has a critical thing to say about their idol, we have two words for you: Johnny Bench.
With all due respect for 4,192 ... and the collision with Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game ... and the glorious return on Aug.17, 1984 - great moments all - there is nothing in Reds history to compare to the sheer joy and love (yes, love) Reds fans had for that 1972 team, all of it reaching a crescendo on Oct.16.
It was Bench's home run that made it possible. His was the greatest clutch hit in the history of the stadium and one of the greatest clutch hits in baseball history.
The whole scene is too ridiculous even to comprehend: Bench, facing an 0-2 count and his team down 3-2{hellip}. Bench, who in the second inning had told Rose, "I hope I come up in the ninth inning with one man on and us needing a hit, because I know I'll get one." ... Bench, who in the on-deck circle before his fateful at-bat, told Joe Morgan, "I'm taking him to right field," even though Bench hardly ever hit to right field; he knew in his gut that Pittsburgh Pirates closer Dave Giusti would try to get him out with his palm ball away. ... Bench, who nodded and smiled when his mother walked down to the railing to signal him to hit a home run ("I knew I was going to hit one out," Bench later said. "I had that feeling."). ... Bench, who knew he was facing offseason lung surgery for what turned out to be a benign tumor, the cutting out of which forever altered his ability to throw and hit like no other catcher had ever thrown or hit before. ... This is the Bench of pre-revisionist history, the Bench before the days of the feuding with Rose.
And, yes, it was the Rose before the feuding with Bench.
Did you know, do you remember, that when Bench connected on his home run, that Rose - who had been called upon in the eighth inning to lay down a sacrifice bunt and delivered - shot out of the dugout and actually beat Bench to first base? Yes, Rose was there waiting to slap palms with Bench when the ball sailed over Clemente's head in right field and over the wall as 41,887 fans sprang to their feet and didn't sit down until George Foster crossed the plate with the winning run after Bob Moose's wild pitch four batters later
"Unbelievable Johnny Bench!" yelled one fan.
"Give him two hundred grand (as a salary for next season)!" yelled another.
Did you know, do you remember, that when the Reds won, a cascade of fans poured over the dugout and intermingled with players and weren't beaten back by security or police on horses?
Did you know, do you remember, that after the game, celebrations broke out all over, most notably on Fountain Square, where fans spilled into the streets and marched west on Fifth Street in a joyous, impromptu parade?
Women kissed strange men, bells rang, horns sounded, confetti filled the air, thousands of voices welled up in a deafening cry of success is the way one reporter described it.
After the game, a thousand fans immediately lined up at the ticket windows to buy World Series tickets for Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 at Riverfront Stadium.
Yes, this was Cincinnati in the heady days just before the city became the capital of the baseball universe. Yes, this was Cincinnati only 1½ generations before it was reduced to a distant black hole in that same baseball universe.
Today, Bench's homer and the frenzy it inspired, is only a memory of a once-upon-a-time place.
But there really was a day when this was Camelot.
And Oct.16, 1972, was that day.
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