No catcher revolutionized the way the position is played more than Johnny Bench. From his first full year in 1968 and throughout the 1970's Bench became the very model of a modern backstop. Bench won the Gold Glove Award every year for the first 10 years of his career and ESPN voted him the greatest catcher in the history of the game. Bench was also a superlative hitter and had unusual power for a catcher. Bench would lead the National League in home runs twice with 45 home runs in 1970 and with 40 roundtrippers in 1972, ultimately finishing with 389 in his Hall of Fame career.

Presented here is one of the earliest Johnny Bench game used bats. This Hillerich & Bradsby R161 model bat dates to his rookie years of 1967 and 1968. As what would be expected from the great hitter that Bench was, this bat displays outstanding game use and has a crack on the handle. There are ball marks, red bat rack streaks and slight checking or grain swelling from repeated ball contact present on the barrel. The handle has been scored to enhance the grip a light coating of pine tar is on the mid-handle. A truly wonderful gamer from arguably the greatest all-around catcher of all-time in his early years. This bat comes with a LOA from PSA/DNA (1B13473) for the game use and has been given a high grade of GU 8.5.

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