CINCINNATI — Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench made an anti-Semitic comment during a pregame press conference honoring the three newest inductees of the Reds Hall of Fame, one of whom, former Reds general manager Gabe Paul, was Jewish.
Paul’s daughter Jennie Paul was in attendance to fill in for Paul, who died in 1998, along with former Reds pitchers Bronson Arroyo and Danny Graves.
During the event, Pete Rose began sharing a story about Paul, noting, “When I graduated high school in 1960, Gabe Paul signed me on a contract for $400 a month.”
Jennie Paul replied, “So cheap… never mind.”
Bench then said, “He was Jewish.”
Several people in the audience laughed. Others didn’t.
Paul later said she didn’t know what Bench said.
“I didn’t even hear him say that,” she said. “Johnny came up to me and said, ‘Were you offended?’ I was like, ‘What for?’” Paul said. “I didn’t even hear him say that. I think if I had heard him say that I might have said something, but I didn’t even hear that.”
Jennie Paul said she was not Jewish and was raised episcopal. She also said that Gabe Paul’s parents were from Ukraine, which was then part of Russia.
“We went to the Church of the Redeemer here in Cincinnati. So when we came back from church, he had this choice of food that was salmon and bagels, not filet fish. No borscht. He never spoke about it,” she said. “But it stayed with him throughout his baseball career because a lot of people knew he was Jewish.”
Paul served as the Reds’ general manager from 1951 to 1960. Under Paul, the Reds signed their first black players, including Chuck Harmon and Nino Escalera.
Paul also signed Frank Robinson, Tony Pérez, Curt Flood and Vada Pinson. He joined Gus Bell, grandfather of current Reds manager David Bell.
At the beginning of the press conference, Paul noted that her father was Jewish and was supportive of Black and Hispanic players.
“He (Gabe Paul) was a minority himself. I don’t know if many of you know he was Jewish,” Jennie Paul said. “He was a big proponent of the underdog because he was an underdog himself. He went into the Latin leagues and the Negro leagues and signed as many minority players as he could which made the Reds stronger.”
The Reds did not respond to a request for comment as of Saturday night.
(Photo: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)