Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer Apologizes For ‘Insensitive’ Antisemitic Joke About Former Jewish General Manager
Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer Johnny Bench apologized on Sunday for a joke he made a day earlier about Reds former general manager Gabe Paul, who was Jewish.
“I recognize my comment was insensitive,” Bench began by saying in a statement cited by Sports Illustrated.
The ex-Cincinnati Reds catcher attended a press conference on Saturday where Paul and former pitchers Danny Graves and Bronson Arroyo were being inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame. Paul was represented by his daughter, Jennie Paul.
During the event, former baseball player and Reds manager Pete Rose talked about his first contract negotiation with Gabe, saying: “When I got out of high school in 1960, Gabe Paul signed me to a contract for 400 bucks a month.” Jennie then interrupted his story and said “That’s cheap!” to which Bench loudly responded by saying, “He was Jewish.” His comment elicited laughter from some people in the room.
In his apology released on Sunday, Bench said, “I apologized to Jennie [Paul] for taking away from her father the full attention he deserves. Gabe Paul earned his place in the Reds Hall of Fame, same as the others who stood on that stage. I am sorry that some of the focus is on my inappropriate remark instead of solely on Gabe’s achievement.”
Gabe, who was the general manager of the Reds from 1951-1960, died in 1998. He signed some of the franchise’s top players including Rose and Hall of Famers Frank Robinson and Tony Perez. During his leadership, Cincinnati began signing Black and Latin American players.
Bench was a 10-time Gold Glove winner for the Cincinnati Reds, two-time National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP), the 1976 World Series MVP, the 1968 NL Rookie of the Year and a 14-time All-Star. He played for the team from 1967-83.
Jennie referenced her father’s Jewish heritage earlier in the press conference when talking about the late Reds manager. She said, “He was a minority himself, I don’t know if many of you know that he was Jewish. He was a very big proponent for the underdog because he was an underdog himself. He went into the Latin leagues and the Negro leagues and he signed as many minority players as he could. Which strengthened the Reds. You have a team in Cincinnati today because of Gabe Paul.”
After the incident, Jennie admitted that she did not hear Bench’s remark.
“I didn’t even hear him say that,” she said. “Johnny came up to me and said, ‘Were you offended?’ I was like, ‘For what?’ I didn’t even hear him say that. I suppose if I had heard him say that I might have said something, but I didn’t even hear him say that.”
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