Esposito, the old White Sox, who backed up Aparicio and Fox from the bench, recalls this one that involves a kid, a rookie catcher with the Tigers who had been working in the bullpen, a benchwarmer, and in the late innings as the game was winding down, he comes in and sits in his favorite place on the bench in the back corner of the dugout.

Punch, medical doctor and ESPN NASCAR analyst retired, recalls the day Lou Holtz recruited a benchwarmer who came to him with some very valuable talents.

Terry Gannon, nationally known sports personality was a major contributor to NC State University’s 1983 national championship team. But as a freshman he rode the bench with limited playing time.

Here are a few more bench warmer classics from the King of the Major League Pine Riders---Sam Esposito.

Later, at the end of his career playing with Kansas City, Sam Esposito and Hawk Harrelson were great friends and golfing buddies.

Then, there was the one Sam told about the secret light in Cominsky Park. A Sox bullpen/bench coach named Del Wilbur was a world class sign stealer. 

Lee Elia had his introduction to major league baseball as a middle infielder, a .200 hitter, who warmed the benches of the Chicago Cubs and White Sox in the early 1960s.

In 1943 Sam Narron, a backup catcher with the St. Louis Cardinals, who had logged his share of bench time, found himself actually off the bench and starting a game for his old manager Billy Southworth.

There are Casey stories that Bob miller, a Mets relief pitcher, loves to tell. That first year, 1962, Casey Stengel--- who in his day was a much better ball player than a lot of people remember---was the Mets manager. Of course, he had been a great manager and had won all those championships with the Yankees.

Can professional golfers be benchie’s? Well, when you consider the number of PGA professionals who, over the years, have had to fight for a player’s card, beg for tournament invites, then play their tails off on Thursdays and Friday’s just to make the money cut.

M.L. Carr, would become a professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and American Basketball Association (ABA), then the head coach and General Manager of the Boston Celtics.

Charlie Bryant wasn’t a benchwarmer. However, he did spend a number of years seated next to one of the NCAA’s finest bench jockeys.

Don Hale, a wire service reporter for United Press International, went on to an award-winning career, establishing nationally recognized innovative and creative public relations programs as a VP at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Texas and Georgia State.

Mike Pesavento a left-hander who pitched for NC State in the early 80’s came from the same area, Joliet, Illinois, as Terry Gannon, one of the stars of NC State’s National Championship basketball team.

Peter Fox will be remembered by many as ESPN’s Founding Executive Producer. The good news is that we should prepare to be entertained and informed when his book ESPN The Early Years is published.

When it comes to Notables sharing stories when you get one personally from Furman Bisher, the award-winning writer, who wrote dozens of books, and covered sports for basically every national magazine in the country you probably have a good one.

In the writing of Pen Men: Baseball’s Greatest Bullpen Stories Told by the Men Who Brought the Game Relief, Bob Cairns had the pleasure of spending time with some of the game’s great pranksters.

Fred Barakat, who headed the ACC referees shared this V berating the pinstripes bench story. NC State was playing Duke at State’s Reynolds’s Coliseum, and it came down to one call at the end of the game. And anyone who knew the ACC in those days knew that Lennie Wertz, a little blond ref was (or at least it seemed to us fans) going to be in the middle of a big call at the end of a nailbiter.

It was little known during those days in the 80s but the fact was that V and Tommie Abatemarco, his head recruiter, had not only been together for years---Iona, etc. but they had this thing where they, at often the most surprising and inappropriate times, liked to wrestle. They moved furniture back and wrestled at lunch time in Sam Esposito’s baseball office.

Here’s one from Ray Birmingham, former USA Baseball hitting coach, 34-yr collegiate baseball HC and 14-yr HC at UNM: It was 2013, and the UNM Lobo baseball team was a top 25 team. It had arguably the best team in program history.

Former sports columnist at Greensboro News & Record and Winston-Salem Journal. Being an athlete in junior high school had its perks, not the least of which was being called out of seventh period to join the rest of your teammates in the locker room.

While I was carrying out interviews for my book Pen Men “Baseball’s Greatest Bullpen Stories Told by the Men Who Brought the Game Relief,” I sat on the bench in Camden Yards with Monte Moore. Monte, at the time, was the play-by play announcer for the Okland A’s.

Sitting in the dugout with a left-handed pitcher and a Shortstop during a college baseball game, I watched the lefty pick up the shortstop’s glove, try it on and pound his fist into the pocket like we all have done a thousand times.