To perceive new White Sox play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti as one-dimensional would be a mistake.
After all, the South Side native would never do that to the team’s fans, regardless of how many try to paint them as little more than “Cubs haters.”
“I’ve lived it, I get it, but that doesn’t mean I have to do the game with that always creeping in,” said the 32-year-old Benetti, who was hired by the team earlier this month. “It’s not the only characteristic of a Sox fan.”
The same must be said for Benetti’s history with cerebral palsy, which he has faced head-on his whole life. The neurological disorder affects body movement and muscle coordination, and the treatments he underwent prior to and since being diagnosed at age 1 would floor the faint of heart: On oxygen the first three months of his life. Three surgeries. Casts on both legs. Braces on both legs. Physical therapy several times a week. Eye surgery.
Although Benetti still walks with an awkward gait and it appears to viewers as if his left eye is not looking at the camera, none of that has inhibited him in the figurative sense. This is a guy who played the tuba in first grade despite being in a wheelchair.
“I wore braces a la Forrest Gump when I was in elementary school, and by the way, they don’t just kind of fly off anybody’s leg—that’s not terribly realistic,” he said. “So yes, when I was younger there were physical limitations. But as I got older I don’t see a doctor routinely for the condition. I don’t believe there to be any degenerative issue other than that I might need to exercise a little more than the average person, and then as I get older to make sure my muscles continue to work as they work right now. But that’s more a protective measure, and lots of people have to do that sort of thing.”
What lots of people do not have, by any stretch, is the chance to call games for their favorite team—even if Benetti called his own shot two decades ago.
“I found an article he wrote when he was in fourth grade or so,” said Sue Benetti, Jason’s mother. “It’s a two-page thing that says, ‘I wonder what I will be in 20 years.’ The next page says, ‘I would love to be a White Sox broadcaster. I admire Ken Harrelson.’ Even now it makes me want to cry because it’s like fate.”
Starting this season, Benetti will work the majority of the home games alongside analyst Steve Stone. Longtime play-by-play man Harrelson will handle road contests as well as a handful of home games. Harrelson is decreasing his workload to reduce the fatigue of traveling from his home in Indiana to U.S. Cellular Field.
Benetti’s road to the Sox booth took him from the radio station at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, to undergrad at Syracuse and law school at Wake Forest, to calling games for the Syracuse Chiefs minor-league baseball team, to announcing college basketball and football for ESPN.
“He’s the smartest guy in the room pretty much everywhere he goes,” said Kevin Brown, who called Chiefs games with Benetti for four years. “… If you’re trying to out-humor him, it’s like going up against Mike Tyson in his prime. I think that will come out on the air, too, especially in a sport like baseball where it is such a long season and the word ‘grind’ is often thrown around. With Jason you never know in what direction he can turn, and that is exciting to me.”
Whereas Harrelson wears his emotions on his sleeve when he’s fired up, Benetti’s style is more understated. Viewers also might want to bookmark thesaurus.com on their smartphones and be prepared to learn the finer points of advanced analytics.
“Believe it or not, he had to learn how to harness that in many ways because he had so many things that were running around his brain during the event that he was covering,” said Ian Eagle, a longtime CBS broadcaster and mentor of Benetti’s. “He actually has learned how to streamline and best utilize his vocabulary for the moment. It’s a rarity.”
Benetti will be able to lean on his breadth of experience, having served as both a home-team and national broadcaster. Avoiding predictability while engaging the audience is the name of the game.
“[In the Sox’s booth], you’re going to need to be varied game by game, week by week, month by month,” Benetti said. “Then again, you have to do what you do well every night. So there’s that constant tugging. At a Bon Jovi concert, somebody’s going to yell, ‘Play “Livin’ on a Prayer!'” right? That’s something that he’s got to do. But at some point you gotta go to the deeper cuts as well. That’s the fun of being a team announcer is to do both, what you do well every night and then to really experiment and take some risks.”
All while making fans forget he has a disorder. How does one do that? A healthy dose of optimism goes a long way.
“Mostly it’s been, ‘Hey, can people deal with me not looking straight into a camera,’ and, ‘Hey, when I run into someone on a jetway, do they think the wheelchair is for me when I get off the plane? Do people see me as a full and complete person?’ And the answer at this point is really yes, and I feel great about humanity in that way, and that’s why I’ll always be grateful to the Sox no matter how this turns out for taking what really is a great chance.”
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
Editor’s note: Much of the interview with Jason Benetti didn’t fit in the story, but these snippets are too good not to share.
On whether he would sign a binding, lifetime contract with the Cubs:
“I went to law school, so I have a bunch of questions about the contract for you. Like how much money? How binding is binding? … The job security sounds outstanding. The thing is, a lot of Sox fans just hate the Cubs. I grew up not being a huge fan of the Cubs; I don’t know if hate is the right word. But the way I’ve been treated by Len Kasper, who does the Cubs games, he’s been a tremendous friend and ally and trumpeter for my career. I just can’t hate the Cubs, and that binding lifetime contract means that Len’s out on the street somewhere panhandling, so I can’t have that. [Laughs.] He’s been so good to me, I’d have to get him the Sox job. I don’t think I’d take the contract, but it’s not because I dislike the Cubs, [but rather] mostly because Len has been so good to me.”
On holding viewers’ interest during blowouts:
“That’s the fun part of this job. Whether it’s some device that [Steve Stone and I] choose to do that we trigger if it’s a 10-run lead either way, we do blank, or if it’s just organic kind of off the cuff, I don’t know what it’s going to be. Do we recite Dickens? Do we do songs from “Oklahoma”? Do we just play Scattergories? I don’t know. Or do we talk about bigger-picture stuff? Do we have fun with Steve’s career? Do we reflect on maybe some teammate that maybe people don’t realize he had, some moment in his career? Or do we have baby photos of the Sox? … What do we do that’s innovative, because yes, attention spans are shorter than they were before, but no, that doesn’t mean a three-hour game can’t exist.”
On his father, who grew up a Cubs fan:
“I do think it’s kind of funny that my dad is now a completely converted Sox fan. He’s got a Sox logo on his Facebook page. He was a Cubs fan. But gradually over time we started going to more Sox games. My mom is a Sox fan, and his son just got hired by the Sox. What’s he gonna do? He’s got no choice, it’s over at this point. [Laughs.]”
@redeyesportschi | chsosa@redeyechicago.com
