Jason Benetti's Introduction To Detroit Made Me Emotional

Holy shit, what a monologue. I’ve been on Twitter for almost 14 years now. I’ve seen people debate whether or not the fucking sky is blue, and yet I am yet to find a single Detroit Tigers fan who isn’t over the moon happy about the organization selecting Jason Benetti to be their TV play-by-play guy. I’ve gotten unironic responses from people who said this is the Tigers best signing of the off-season. I love Benetti a lot, but I hope that isn’t the case. I prefer to see the product on the field get better. Give Benetti something to sink his teeth into when the season rolls around, but I’m happy people are excited. I am one of those people. 

I don’t really put much stake in whether or not somebody wins a press conference. To be honest, I’m not really sure what that means. How can you lose a press conference? I was unaware that it was a competition. With that said, you know when somebody nails it, and Benetti nailed it here. I said yesterday that I think his personal story is going to connect with a lot of people, and the fact that he found a way to link his story to the story of Detroit was goddamn poetic. 

It does feel weird to be so excited about something that will likely have zero impact on the field. Still, I’m also extremely confident that the previous Tigers regime wouldn’t have had the guts or the ingenuity to go get a broadcaster like Benetti. Bringing him into the booth does show a commitment to something. With each passing day, I’m starting to believe that one of the reasons why the Tigers were a third-rate organization over the last Seven years was because owner Chris Ilitch had zero faith in what Al Avila was doing. The jury is still out on Scott Harris, but it’s very clear that he has complete control here. We will find out very soon if that’s a good thing.