For all the benchwarmers out there.

The other night we went to see a Redhawks baseball game. The Redhawks are our OKC minor league team who happen to be a farm team for the Rangers. Yes those Texas Rangers.

Anywho. I dropped off Amy near the front entrance to the ball park while I parked the car. The ballpark, which is a nice little park if you haven't seen it, has several statues of famous Oklahoma baseball players out front. She was meeting our party in front of the Mickey Mantle. She asked me which statue was his, and I remember it being the one in between the home plate and 3rd base entrances and told her where it was.

Later after the game she commented that the first statue (between the home and 1st entrances) was not Mickey Mantle as we has suspected but was the statue of a guy named "Joe Benchwarmer". At this point I was very confused. Who the hell was Joe Benchwarmer? Was this some 13th man of baseball? A tribute to the second stringer, triple-A, never-made-it-to-the-big-leagues, player?

Upon asking a few more questions she finally admitted. "Maybe it wasn't Joe, maybe it was Johnny." Johnny Benchwarmer? Then it hit me.

"Johnny Bench?" I asked incredulously.

"Sure, maybe that was it."























So basically in one misunderstanding, my wife reduced one of the greatest catchers ever to play the game of baseball, and one of my childhood baseball heroes*, to a second tier benchwarmer.
After I stopped cracking up and explained her mistake she looked at me and said "This is going in the blog, isn't it?"

Yup.

Now, dear readers, how do I explain to her who Yogi the Bear was named after?

* I actually had his 1982 baseball card. Along with the entire 1984 Detroit Tigers starting lineup. But I lost all my cards in a tragic, angst filled "I think my Mom threw away the cigar box they were in" event of my childhood. It's scarred me ever since.