The fallout over the season-ending Buster Posey collision has reached the Hall of Fame. Johnny Bench didn't stick up for his fellow catcher, blaming the situation on Posey:
Buster put himself in such a bad position. First of all, my catchers don't sit in front of home plate. They stand away from home plate and work back to the plate. But we (catchers) are just fair game. You've got a guy running around third base at 210 to 220 pounds with 3 percent body fat and with sprinter's speed. I teach my kids to stay away from the plate when you don't have the ball so the runner actually sees home plate and his thought is, slide. But Buster is laying in front of home plate, and it's like having a disabled car in the middle of a four-lane highway. You're just going to get smacked. Show them the plate.
Anyone who's seen The Baseball Bunch, a kids' show that the Reds backstop hosted in the early '80s, knows that he could have given Buster a much sterner rebuke. I have never seen anyone angrier at poultry or anything else than Bench at that chicken in the above video. Absolutely brutal.
Up close: Q&A with Johnny Bench [Tulsa World]
Baseball Bunch, Season 3 Episode 3, Part 1 and Part 2 [Youtube]