Overshadowed in era of great catchers, Pirates' Manny Sanguillen was among best at position in 1970s

There’s no question former Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillen enjoyed the contemporaneous respect of his peers during a 12-year MLB career spent primarily in Pittsburgh.

A three-time All-Star and member of the 1971 and ’79 World Series champions, Sanguillen was a key player during an exciting decade of baseball in Pittsburgh.

The Pirates demonstrated their high evaluation of Sanguillen on Saturday at PNC Park, inducting him into their 2024 Hall of Fame class alongside former skipper Jim Leyland and Barry Bonds.

“I loved to play for this team,” said Sanguillen, 80, a native of Colon, Panama. “That’s my life — it’s in Pittsburgh. I love everybody. … I want to be remembered as giving the whole thing to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh the city. I was always ready to play.”

The 1970s featured exceptional catchers across MLB, such as Ted Simmons, Carlton Fisk and Thurman Munson. Of all the great catchers of the day, one in particular cast a shadow that has kept Sanguillen’s legacy somewhat shaded.

“He was, unfortunately, the victim of his career basically paralleling Johnny Bench, who may be the best catcher in the history of the game,” said Pirates Hall of Fame closer Kent Tekulve, Sanguillen’s teammate for six seasons, including the 1979 World Series club. “At that point in time, (Sanguillen) was probably the second-best catcher in Major League Baseball.

“Nobody realized it because it was always Bench, Bench, Bench. … If he comes up in any other era except when Johnny Bench parallels his career, he’s probably considered the best catcher in all of baseball.”

Bench won the Gold Glove in 10 consecutive seasons from 1968-77, overshadowing Sanguillen as the best catcher in the National League during the peak of their respective playing days.

Bench’s 17-year career with the Cincinnati Reds propelled him to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.

Like Tekulve, Steve Blass took nothing away from Bench. But having thrown to Sanguillen for parts of seven seasons, highlighted in the 1971 World Series, Blass found it undeniable that Bench’s star power obscured Sanguillen during their careers and beyond.

“Johnny Bench was so great, but if Bench wasn’t around, Sanguillen would have had more acknowledgement as maybe being the best catcher in the National League for those years,” Blass said.

For his part, Sanguillen reflected back on battling Bench without any bitterness.

“I had to compete with Johnny Bench but you know what? I love that, because he made me better,” Sanguillen said. “I’d say, ‘I have to be better.’ It was great.”

While Sanguillen never won a Gold Glove, his former teammates recalled a player who was elite defensively.

“He was a stud,” Blass said. “He had a six-pack and was built like a boxer. He had the agility to move very quickly. You threw it outside, and 99% of the time he’d be able to go get it. He was like a cat behind home plate.”

Sanguillen also earned high marks for his strategic approach as a battery mate.

Tekulve was glad to have had Sanguillen catch not only his first pitch as a big leaguer but countless others during the years they shared together in Pittsburgh.

“Nobody realized how smart he was as far as the game itself,” Tekulve said. “It was a privilege, an honor and a real boost to my career to have that guy happen to be the guy catching for the Pittsburgh Pirates when I found my way here in 1975.”

Sanguillen was best known for the bat he swung, posting a lifetime average of .296, which was higher than Bench (.267), Munson (.292), Simmons (.285) and Fisk (.269).

Never a power hitter, Sanguillen was always good with men on base, recording at least 55 RBIs in eight of his nine full big-league campaigns, including 1977 with the Oakland Athletics, the one non-Pirates season he played.

And of course, Tekulve and Blass couldn’t help but chuckle at Sanguillen’s trademark broken English.

“He had the best pitching conferences I could possibly tell you about,” Blass said. “The seventh inning of the seventh game of the (1971) World Series, we’re ahead 2-1, he comes out, lifts his mask, looks me straight in the eyes and says, ‘Oh, you know,’ and then left. That was the conference! What the hell did I know?”

Even without the most masterful grasp of English, Sanguillen had a way of communicating his point in tense situations.

“There were moments during a game where he’d come out to the mound and say something and, No. 1, you’d try to figure out what he was saying and, No. 2, you would just laugh,” Tekulve said.

“He knew if maybe you were getting a little too tense, he would say something to make you take a deep breath and relax.”

Sanguillen, often found at his Manny’s BBQ stand behind center field in PNC Park, has remained a visible figure for the club long after his playing career ended.

Being enshrined in the Pirates Hall of Fame along with Blass, Tekulve and his dear friend, Roberto Clemente, is an honor he does not take lightly.

“The people in Pittsburgh — I love Pittsburgh,” he said. “I love the Pittsburgh Pirates.”