Last fall, after wrapping up a story about Homewood-Flossmoor High School alums celebrating the 50th anniversary of their student radio station, WHFH, I got an email from WSCR host, H-F grad and all around good guy Laurence Holmes.
“Just thought you’d like to add another guy that came out of WHFH and he may be the best story of them all,” Holmes wrote. “Check the middle of the column for Jason Benetti.”
I read the link Holmes attached, a Sports Illustrated media piece about Benetti, a bit of a rising star at ESPN. But, with my story done in advance of the event, I thought perhaps I’d save Benetti for a day-of feature. Naturally, that never happened. And four months after I blew the chance to alert locals to the advancing prospects of Homewood native Benetti, the 32-year-old was named to the White Sox broadcasting crew.
Sigh.
Friday, after the second spring training game of his Sox tenure, I related the tale to Benetti.
“Oh my goodness,” Benetti said. “He didn’t have to do that. Laurence is the best. He’s been so good to me.”
He’s not the only one. Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper urged the Sox to hire Benetti, later telling the Chicago Tribune, “When I strongly suggest somebody, that means I think (the person) is going to be great.”
And, after Benetti’s March 12 debut, the Trib’s Ed Sherman and the Daily Herald’s Mike Imrem both lauded the new play-by-play man’s work.
Benetti has been hired to replace Ken Harrelson beside Steve Stone for 81 TV broadcasts this season — 78 home games and a three-game trip to Toronto. Given that “Hawk” is going on his 32nd season in the booth, Sox fans are facing a significant adjustment.
It is a change for which many are ready. Yet, Benetti deserves to be judged based on more than simply not being the other guy, a yardstick that, though it has benefited folks from Sammy Hagar and Donald Trump, is mystifying to Benetti.
“I honestly don’t understand the premise,” Benetti said. “Hawk can be Hawk, and I can be me.”
Still, comparisons are inevitable — just as it is inevitable that a 74-year-old former player and 32-year-old graduate of the Wake Forest School of Law would come at the same job differently.
(To flesh out his curriculum vitae: Benetti also graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in broadcast communications, called NCAA football for Westwood One radio, and is a former play-by-play man for the Triple A Syracuse Chiefs.)
Now in Sox camp for the duration after popping in and out previously to work college basketball games, Benetti is already displaying some of the ways Sox broadcasts will sound different when he’s at the mic.
He’s got the pipes for the gig, which is to say a resonance that conveys polish rather than affectation.
But, most tellingly, Benetti is curious. Friday, between the first pitch and the fifth out, he asked Stone three questions — all of which seemed to spring organically from the conversation.
“Those are decidedly not planned,” Benetti said. “I’m interested. I genuinely want to know what he thinks. If I hear something that might be a little vague or that just makes me curious, I follow up.
“I have a wealth of pitching knowledge sitting next to me, and I want to know more.”
And here is where I must compare: Harrelson is really a color man in the play-by-play chair. He seems more interested in telling Stone what he knows rather than giving the viewer the opportunity to discover the reverse, which is his job.
Beyond that, Hawk and Stoney, at best, seem to tolerate each other. Their chemistry is less Piersall/Caray than it is Portman/Christensen.
Under less-than-ideal circumstances Friday, Benetti and Stone displayed, if nothing else, a willingness to get along that even hinted at fondness.
At one point, Stone noted the obvious, saying, “If the team is real good, Jason and I are going to sound terrific.”
Later, after hearing Stone complain about having a hit taken away that knocked his career average down three points, Benetti asked, “Did we bring the Comcast SportsNet violins for that story?”
So it’s not LOL-funny. For Sox fans reduced to hate-watching Hawk, a smile is an improvement — speaking of which…
“I thought we were totally in sync in Game 1,” Benetti said of his rapport with Stone. “(Friday) we didn’t have a whole lot of time to get into a rhythm.”
Visits to the booth by Bo Jackson and Frank Thomas, and an in-game interview with Robin Ventura, made for an atypical broadcast, though Benetti noted, “As someone who grew up a Sox fan, that’s a dream day at the office.”
But the dream job begins in earnest now that he’s embedded with the team.
“If we’re not getting better every game, we’re not doing it right,” Benetti said. “My experience prior to the ESPN and Westwood One stuff was with a minor league team, and (covering a team on a daily basis) is where you get to know people really well. That’s my understanding of how to do the job.”
And if he does that job without resorting to a hoary cache of catchphrases, any growing pains will be met with understanding from Sox fans. You can put it on the board.
Phil Arvia is a freelance writer.
