2nd Degree Gopher
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- Joined
- Nov 26, 2008
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Briefly met Bench at an airport one time. We were both waiting for a flight to Cincinnati from Washington DC (or maybe Baltimore). No one, including me, even looked up when the gate agent paged "John Bench, please come to the ticket counter. John Bench to the ticket counter." A few minutes later, she repeated the page and a guy walked past me towards the desk. I thought "that guy looks like Johnny Bench, except Johnny Bench must be taller. Wait a minute, I bet Johnny Bench's real name is John Bench." Sure enough, it was him. He then sat next to me and we made a little small talk until it was time to get on the flight. Told him that I was a Twins fan and he told me how much he loved watching Kirby play. (This was probably 1993 or 1994.) I asked him how it was that he could be virtually unnoticed while waiting for a flight to Cincinnati and he said that people often didn't link the name John Bench to him and that he "didn't really look like an athlete."AHHH. Yes. That's right. Johnny Bench. Man, those were good times. I wish I was a kid again.
After he boarded the plane, three different people came over to me and said something along the lines of "Was that Johnny Bench? Man is he an a-hole."