Rob Butcher in Binger, Oklahoma, Friday afternoon. Johnny Bench was Butcher’s favorite player growing up and this is his first visit to Binger, the boyhood home of Bench. (Submitted Photo)
Rob Butcher during a press conference with Reds legend Barry Larkin. (MLB Photo)
Rob Butcher (Courtesy Cincinnati Reds)
Rob Butcher and then Reds manager Dusty Baker. (MLB Photo)
Rob Butcher at Great American Ball Park. (Courtesy Cincinnati Reds)
Fully expecting to be done with his baseball career, Rob Butcher sat in the dugout at Goodyear Ballpark Wednesday night following the Reds 8-1 loss to the Rangers.
“Just soaking it all in,” he said.
Upon completion of his post-game duties, Butcher was ready to begin retirement.
“I thought I was done … then I got a text from baseball ops (operations) that we’re about to make a trade,” Butcher said. “I thought I was done, but I wasn’t. That’s what this job is.”
After Butcher and his teammates in the media relations department for the Reds completed the task of getting the word out regarding the Reds acquisition of infielder Santiago Espinal from the Blue Jays, Butcher could finally call it a career.
“This was a perfect way to go out,” Butcher said. “It summed up what that job is. You’re never really done. The job never ends.”
After 27 years leading the Cincinnati Reds media relations department, Butcher has retired. His final work day was Wednesday. In all, he spent 35 years in professional baseball between the Reds, New York Yankees and Columbus Clippers.
WNJ roots
Rob Stephen Butcher, son of Rita and the late Richard Butcher, grew up in Wilmington with nine brothers and sisters. A 1981 graduate of Wilmington High School, Butcher went on to the University of Dayton where he graduated in 1985 with a degree in broadcasting and journalism.
Butcher worked full-time at the Wilmington News Journal as sports editor in the mid-1980s. Under the guidance of the late Clarence Graham, Butcher covered Clinton County like the great sports editors of the past, with a feverish determination to be everywhere, all the time.
“Clarence brought me in one day and said you can’t continue this, this work schedule,” Butcher recalled. “About a year and a half later, he was right. I left because I couldn’t do it anymore. During the school year, (being sports editor) is basically the same schedule I’ve done the last 35 years. The stakes here are a little higher but … .”
Working with the four Clinton County schools so closely gave Butcher an idea for the future. He left the News Journal in February 1987 and went to Columbus. He worked as the sports editor for a group of suburban newspapers while attending Ohio State for his master’s degree in sports management.
“I was hoping to become an athletic director,” he said. “Working with all the ADs when I was (at the News Journal), I just thought that was the coolest job ever working at that level, with high school kids.”
Butcher knew the sports management program at OSU had a strong connection with the Columbus Clippers, the Class AAA minor league affiliate with the New York Yankees. He didn’t know it at the time, but the relationship with the Clippers would change his life forever.
“In the spring of ‘88 when I walked into that (Clippers) office for the first time, walking in to that office on Mound Street, I knew I was going to do this (work in baseball) the rest of my life,” Butcher said.
All in, or not
Working in or with media is a massive undertaking. Unlike the public relations job with even the biggest of businesses, sports media relations is overwhelming. Media does not wait for sports news. It shows up every day wanting more.
“It’s all consuming,” Butcher said. “One of the reasons I decided to retire is it became a job to me. When it becomes a job, I knew I was done … because it can’t be a job. The lifestyle is too much. It’s a life commitment. I’d find myself in a hotel at 1 o’clock in the morning working on game notes.”
Butcher said he felt life was passing him by while working in a job that was literally 24/7/365.
“When I first talked to my GM (Reds general manager Nick Krall) about this (retiring), he said why not adjust your schedule,” Butcher said.
Backing away from work, as we found out from his days with the News Journal, was not in Butcher’s DNA.
“I never did a job that way,” he said. “I felt I was responsible to the manager and the general manager. I was an extension to the players. I felt they needed me. I need to be there if something happens. I can’t half-ass this. I’m either in or I’m not.”
That Butcher felt the need to inform Krall and Reds manager David Bell when he was mowing his grass so they didn’t think he was taking time off his job tells you all you need to know about his nose-to-the-grindstone mentality.
“I always had to be there, be available and I was,” he said. “To a fault.”
Butcher began thinking retirement when Covid dominated the news. “Covid was really difficult on everyone,” he said. “To the baseball industry, sports in general, it was soul crushing, brutal to go through.”
Then he decided he didn’t want to leave the Reds in the wake of a nationwide pandemic, so another year was added to his resume. A lockout followed and then the prospect of leaving a Major League Baseball career after 29 years led to Butcher sticking around for year 30.
“I was waiting for that event that made me say ‘I’m going to stick around’,” he said. “I worked the World Series (in 2023) for the first time in a few years and when that was over, I knew I was done. I talked with Dana. If I was going to end a 35-year career, I wanted to make sure I was right. The day after our anniversary (Nov. 28) I called Nick. I knew I was done.”
Shattered dream
Butcher worked for the Clippers from 1988 to 1992 before being hired as assistant director of media relations with the Yankees.
Media. In New York.
The kid from Wilmington had made the big time.
“This is a dream come true,” Butcher told the News Journal during an interview in March 1993.
Admittedly, though, Butcher was uneasy. Living in New York City was not a simple task for someone who grew up there, let alone for a small-town Ohio kid. He was 29 at the time and was going make $62 a day in meal money alone. Being part of a Major League Baseball team was too good to pass on regardless of any ancillary circumstances.
By June 1993, Butcher ascended the media relations ladder in the world’s biggest media market when he became director of media relations for the Yankees.
At the time, the Yankees were owned by George Steinbrenner, a combustible, impatient sort who didn’t like to lose and always seemed to find someone to blame outside himself.
Steinbrenner had a tempestuous relationship with New York media during his reign as Yankee owner. Butcher, on the other hand, was good with the media because he was fair and worked harder at his job than anyone else.
So when Steinbrenner decided just a few days short of Christmas 1995 to fire Butcher, the Fourth Estate had Butcher’s back.
FIRED FOR CHRISTMAS the headline screamed in the New York Daily News.
Boss butchers PR guy, the subhead followed.
Maybe realizing Butcher had every right to visit his family in Ohio for Christmas that year, or maybe he didn’t like to lose the public relations game, Steinbrenner offered Butcher his job back. After a few days, Butcher declined the offer and stepped away from his dream job.
Full circle
On Spring Street in the 1970s and 1980s, Butcher, his siblings and friends would play baseball. Whether in his mind or by declaration, Rob was Johnny Bench, the Oklahoma kid who took Cincinnati and the baseball world by storm beginning in 1968. Bench’s Hall of Fame career started in Binger, Okla.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Binger, Oklahoma, ever since I was a little kid, 5- or 6-years-old,” Butcher said. “You remember the Bob Braun Show? My mom would let me skip school to watch it knowing Johnny Bench was going to be on.”
As Butcher, his wife of 25 years Dana and their 5-year-old border collie Montego left Goodyear, Arizona, Wednesday for their home in northern Kentucky, Butcher decided they would take in the sights of our country’s midsection.
Mountains surrounded them on their drive out of Arizona on the way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Many may not think much of such a road trip, pushing 2,000 miles, but for Butcher it was the trip of a lifetime.
Passing through the Great Plains of Texas, the Butchers were headed to Binger.
“The last 27 years or so, I’ve got to know Johnny pretty well,” Butcher said. “He said whenever you’re in the area, let me know. It’s just a tiny little town in Oklahoma. There’s not much to do there.”
Except visit the place where your childhood hero grew up.
After Binger, the trip takes a slightly northern trek to Commerce, Oklahoma.
“My mom was a huge Mickey Mantle fan,” Butcher said. “I met Mickey right before he died. I was in (Yankee manager) Buck Showalter’s office at Yankee Stadium. Mickey’s health was never real good (during Butcher’s time with the team) so he wasn’t around a lot. But Buck said you want to stick around? Why, you need something? No, Mickey Mantle’s coming by.”
Butcher just sat in a corner while Mickey and Buck talked. And Butcher was more than OK with that.
“Binger and Commerce just ties my whole career together with the Reds and Yankees,” Butcher said. “I’ve always wanted to do it (go to Binger and Commerce). The timing was never good, always in a hurry to get to spring training or get home.”
Unmatched
Butcher was director of media relations from 1997 to 2016 for the Reds then vice president of media relations from Dec. 27, 2016 until his retirement.
His resume is unmatched.
At the annual Winter Meetings in December 2006, Butcher received Major League Baseball’s Robert O. Fishel Award for public relations excellence.
Over 30 seasons from 1994 through 2023, Butcher worked 44 of Major League Baseball’s 58 in-season jewel events, including 22 All-Star Games (1994, 1995, 1999, 2001-2019) and 22 World Series (1995, 1997, 2000-11, 2013-2019, 2023).
In March 2006, March 2009 and March 2017 he served as MLB’s press liaison for Team USA during the World Baseball Classic and in November 2012 was MLB’s public relations liaison at the Taiwan qualifier for the 2013 WBC. He received a gold medal when Team USA won the 2017 World Baseball Classic.
In September 2001, Butcher was inducted into the Clinton County Sports Hall of Fame. He ran the 2010 Boston Marathon in 3:24:59.
“I’ve just done so many cool things,” he said. “I don’t know what cool things are left for me to do. The only thing I’ve never been able to do is my teams have never won in the playoffs.”
Maybe the Reds win a post-season series this season as Butcher watches the games on television. He said he’s ready for retirement and all that comes with it. He and Dana plan to travel and baseball won’t be a big part of any trip.
“Today,” Rob said Thursday afternoon, “is my first day as a regular person. Now I want to enjoy the boredom … I’m looking forward to it.
“I had a good run. Thirty-five years. There has to be a stopping point. I loved every second of it. I probably could have done it forever, which is the problem.
“I’ve tried to help everyone. The voicemails and emails I got the last few days, I got the impression I might have helped a few people.”
Reach Mark Huber at 937-556-5765, via email [email protected] or at twitter.com @wnjsports
