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Johnny remained a catcher until his sophomore year in high school, when the coach thought that his formidable arm could be put to better use. As a pitcher, Bench compiled a fancy 16-1 record over two years, "with a bunch of no-hitters." He was also named all-state as a basketball guard as well as class valedictorian. Why did he give up the glamour of pitching to return to the rigors of catching? "Maybe," he said, "it was because I hit .675 in high school." But Binger was still mighty small potatoes so far as pro scouts were concerned, and Bench was not picked by the Reds until the second round of choices in 1965. He was sent to Tampa in the Florida State League, where he performed indifferently. Still, a coach named Yogi Berra watched his moves and exclaimed: "He can do it all now."
He did it all for Peninsula in the Carolina League in 1966, driving in 68 runs in 98 games before being called to Buffalo. (In a gesture almost unheard of in the minor leagues, Peninsula permanently retired his number.) His beginning in Buffalo was even more negative than his start in Tampa. He broke his right thumb on a foul tip in his first game. Later a drunken driver forced him off the road. Johnny wound up, as he remembers, "with 18 stitches in my head and my left arm laid open." When he returned in 1967, however, the hand was apparently healed; one of every four Bench hits was a home run, and he was called up to the parent club toward the end of the season, just before he was named Minor League Player of the Year.
Since that time, Johnny's career has been even more astronomical. But even astronauts run into trouble now and again. One problem was the size of Johnny's head, which was literally 7½ but figuratively swollen far beyond that size. Johnny defended his jaunty ways. "If you aren't cocky as a catcher," he said, "you aren't doing your job." Fan and media adulation mounted. Bench was called on to do a two-minute role in a Mission: Impossible episode; he muffed it slightly by stepping off on the wrong foot in a parade sequence. He jokingly told a sportswriter banquet: "I know what it means to be a success. I can read it in your eyes." Dave Bristol, then the Reds' manager, voiced a sentiment that Bench's teammates had left unspoken. "Every day, everywhere I go, it's Johnny Bench, Johnny Bench, Johnny Bench, Johnny Bench. He's not super yet. A superplayer can do everything." Acknowledging Johnny's outstanding play, Bristol complained nonetheless that Bench "doesn't like to be told anything, and he doesn't like to make a mistake—any mistake. He is so intelligent and conscientious that it hurts him to have to be told about a shortcoming."