Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench was scrutinized recently. And it was after he appeared to make an antisemitic joke during the Cincinnati Reds’ Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The ceremony was to put the late Gabe Paul and two other players on the Hall of Fame list. And Paul served as the general manager of the team from 1951 to 1960.
Along with Bench, there were Pete Rose, Jennie Paul, Danny Graves, and Bronson Arroyo. And it was during the ceremony that Johnny Bench made an offensive remark about Paul being of Jewish origin.
Just some casual #antisemitism from @reds hall of famer @JohnnyBench_5 followed by laughter. More here: https://t.co/gK4ouyvIlR pic.twitter.com/g4KWuWzhGP
— (((David Lange))) (@Israellycool) July 16, 2023
And ever since the video of that moment went viral, Johnny Bench received a lot of backlash. But it seems that she soon recognized his mistake. Or maybe decided to back out keeping the angered audience in mind. And then he apologized publicly accepting that his remark was “insensitive”.
“I recognize my comment was insensitive… I apologized to Jennie 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,” Bench’s statement read.
It’s worth noting that Johnny Bench and Gave Paul were not in the Reds at the same time. And that’s because the team drafted him in 1965. While Paul had already resigned from the team in 1965, that was 5 years before Bench joined.
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What was the joke that Johnny Bench made during the ceremony?
During the ceremony, Gabe Paul’s daughter, Jennie Paul was there to represent him. And when she was giving her speech, she talked about her father being of Jewish origin. After that, Pete Rose was telling a story about how Paul signed him a “400 bucks contract” during high school.
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“I was right out of high school in 1960. Gabe Paul signed me to a contract. For 400 bucks a month,” Rose said.
And at that time, in between the speech, Johnny Bench made an antisemitic joke. And while some people laughed at his joke, others were shocked and remained silent.
“That’s cheap! He was Jewish,” Johnny Bench had said at that time.
And it was after the clip of this moment got viral that Bench apologized recently. But when Paul’s daughter Jennie was asked about the same, she said that she “didn’t even hear” it. She also revealed that Johnny Bench himself has asked him if she was “offended”.
“I didn’t even hear him say that… 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. (Via ESPN)
The joke that Johnny Bench made was surely not appropriate. But now as he has apologized, people can only expect him not to repeat such mistakes.