GLENDALE, Ariz. -- As Jason Benetti prepared for last Tuesday’s Big Ten college basketball contest between Indiana and Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind., Dan Dakich, his partner for so many entertaining broadcasts, came to check on him .
Dakich happens to be a Cubs fan, making for some humorous on-air banter with the voice of the White Sox. And that Tuesday happened to be when free agent Manny Machado agreed to a 10-year, $300 million deal with the Padres, leaving the White Sox as a disappointed runner-up.
“We come to the game and I’m looking at Twitter and he’s like, ‘Are you OK? You look sad. You all right? You look sad,’” Benetti said. “I went on his radio show that day and he was like, ‘What’s the deal? You sad or whatever?’ We talked about it a little bit on the air.
“I said ‘Yeah, everybody is sad that wanted him.’ I know there was some Sox fans who were like, ‘Stay away. We don’t want him.’ That exists, too. People are sad and mad.
“He’s like ‘Are you going to do this game?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, I’m going to do the game. He just kept giving me [grief]. 'Are you going to actually do this game?' Of course I am, you pain in the neck.”
Benetti currently is in Arizona preparing for his fourth season as part of the television-broadcast team and his first as the full-time White Sox play-by-play voice with the iconic Ken "Hawk" Harrelson retiring after last season. Harrelson had no issue showing his on-air and off-air love and support for the White Sox during his 34 years in the booth, living each moment of glory and failure with the franchise.
While Benetti’s style certainly is different from Harrelson's, he grew up a White Sox fan approximately 23 miles from Guaranteed Rate Field. Listening to the fans is important, per Benetti, because these broadcasters once were fans themselves and he tried to balance that line of thinking with his utmost broadcast professionalism after the White Sox missed on Machado.
“My reaction was I know what that feels like. I get why they are [upset]. I would have been, too,” Benetti said. “You have to move on, and I wanted to say the rebuild is still in effect and that still counts. All these prospects are still here. But I said, ‘Dude, don’t tweet. Shut up and just listen.’ I would have just wanted somebody to listen to me as a fan.
“I’m trying to think like somebody who is the play-by-play announcer, but I totally get why Sox fans were mad and I feel for them because I’ve been there. The reason you love a team is because you kind of want to get [upset] at them some time. That’s OK.
“You want to get the guy you aim for. The Sox were in on him and you are close. That hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. But it’s also one guy. That all just filters in cycles.”
Present focus for Benetti falls upon the White Sox players he grew to know even better during his first season on the road in 2018, and putting his imprint on the broadcast with analyst Steve Stone, who is entering his 12th season with the White Sox.
“There are some things we have in the hopper that I think are going to be fun,” Benetti said. “But I work with Dan Dakich for basketball for so many games and his ability to pinpoint things in game that are interesting and really instructive, I’m excited to do that again with Stoney for a full season because I think that’s there for him. It doesn’t always have to be a bit that we create.
“It’s how are we seeing something in the game that’s different then what everybody else would see in that game. It’s a combination of both.”