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Gibson may very well have been the best ever, but I will stick to catchers for whom we have historical stats.

Bill Dickey is my choice. Consider that he produced consistently high OPS figures during his career while striking out only 289 times in 6,300 career at bats. The rarity of his strikeouts were amazing, and he was also renowned as a solid defensive catcher. His prowess behind the plate moves him ahead of Piazza in my mind and places him as the best catcher of all time.

Peter- not sure why no love for Mickey Cochrane.

Same era as Bill Dickey with similar stats and 2 MVP's vs zero for Dickey.

Another thing I noticed, Bench has a serious drain on career stats with his 1976 season, which oddly he won Series MVP for - still remember having the SI cover with him swinging on my bedroom wall (I had pictures from SI all over my wall as a collage, until spiders were found nesting behind them years later, lol

back to my pick - Tie, Cochrane and Dickey with Bench 2nd and Juiced (my assumption) Piazza 3rd

OK, I'll get ahead of the board for a bit, I can just see it coming.

Begin mini-rant.

Yep, there's going to be a big media and flap about A-Rod's tests (which were supposed to be confidential) in 2003. Going to be a lot of ink, cyber and otherwise, about it with an awful lot of holier than thou words coming out. Ought, should, etc.. Words like that.

Count me as someone who just wants to watch a baseball game and not wring my hands about something that happened 5+ years ago.

End of mini-rant.

BL- Bad job on my part, Cochrane should have been there.

I'm sticking with Bench.