Updated by The Baseball Page on Apr 14, 2015

Best Catchers of All Time

We rank the best catchers of all time

Source: http://www.thebaseballpage.com/history/top-50-catchers

Johnny Bench

Quite possibly the greatest defensive catcher of all-time, Johnny Bench won two Most Valuable Player awards as a young man and led the best team of the 1970s as a mature major leaguer. He retired having hit more home runs than any other catcher and was one of the best clutch hitters in post-season history. He was the 1968 National League Rookie of the Year and he ended up in the Hall of Fame.

Yogi Berra

"Yogi had the fastest bat I ever saw. He could hit a ball late, that was already past him, and take it out of the park. The pitchers were afraid of him because he'd hit anything, so they didn't know what to throw. Yogi had them psyched out and he wasn't even trying to psyche them out." - Former teammate Hector Lopez.

Short, stocky, and lacking grace both in the field and at the bat, Yogi Berra hardly looked like a future Hall of Famer when he first joined the New York Yankees in 1946. But, by the end of his 18-year career, Berra had established himself as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history, and as one of the winningest players in the history of professional team sports. Berra was so successful that longtime Yankee manager Casey Stengel considered him to be his good luck charm, relying heavily on his catcher during his 12-year managerial stint in New York. Stengel once said of Berra, "He'd fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch." Stengel stated on another occasion, "They say he's funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a beautiful home, money in the bank, and he plays golf with millionaires. What's funny about that?"

Roy Campanella

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Mickey Cochrane

One of the greatest catchers in baseball history, Mickey Cochrane is considered by many historians of the game to be the finest receiver to play in the major leagues during the first half of the 20th century. An exceptional line-drive hitter, Cochrane posted the highest lifetime batting average (.320) and on-base percentage (.419) of any catcher with more than 5,000 career at-bats. An outstanding team leader as well, Cochrane played for five pennant-winning teams and three world championship squads in his 13 major league seasons. He helped lead Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics to three straight pennants and two world championships from 1929 to 1931, before piloting the Detroit Tigers to back-to-back pennants in 1934 and 1935, and to victory in the 1935 World Series as the team's player-manager.

Josh Gibson | The Baseball Page

Second only to the legendary Satchel Paige among Negro League players in terms of fame and popularity, Josh Gibson is generally considered to be the greatest hitter in the history of black baseball. An almost mythical figure, Gibson was often referred to as the "Black Babe Ruth" during his playing days due to his tremendous power at the plate. Yet, those people who saw the Negro League catcher perform regularly preferred to think of Ruth as the "White Josh Gibson." While statistics for Negro League players are far from reliable, Gibson reportedly won nine home-run titles and four batting championships during a 17-year career that began in 1930 and ended in 1946.