Todd Benzinger Blossoms Under New Manager

BOSTON — Listen to Todd Benzinger and you hear the words of a happy, relieved player. Look at Benzinger’s statistics and you see numbers that symbolize the Red Sox’ wondrous season.

One of Boston’s top young talents, the first baseman-outfielder is a switch hitter with a model swing. When playing for now-departed manager John McNamara, Benzinger was in and out of the lineup, batting .238, and hearing McNamara say that he babied himself and would not play hurt.

On July 14, just after the All-Star break, McNamara was fired and third-base coach Joe Morgan took over. Since then, Benzinger has been a great success, batting .368 with a 13-game hitting streak up to Aug. 5. Boston was 19-1 in Morgan’s first 20 games and Benzinger played in every one--with pleasure.

“This is like I always imagined baseball would be when I was a little kid,” he said. “It’s fun now. Fun to come to the ballpark, fun to play. Before there was just a dead feeling. The change has been incredible, the quickness of it, the severity of it.”

Morgan is an easy-going, talkative manager who has spoken individually with every player since he took over the team. McNamara, dour by nature, was uncommunicative with his players and not interested in their personal ups and downs. In the absence of encouragement, Benzinger’s uncertainty grew.

“With Mac you played scared for a week, he never told you what you were doing right or wrong,” recalled Benzinger. “All it would have taken was a one-minute talk--for Mac to tell me I’d be a good player and to hang in there. That would have made all the difference.

“You’ve got to take away that fear of making mistakes out there. If you play scared, it’s going to show. I’ve played scared before. I hope I don’t have to again.”

Under McNamara, the Red Sox seemed a talent-laden team going nowhere. Going into the All-Star break they were 43-42 and nine games out of first place.

Despite the young talent Boston’s farm system was producing, and the struggles of older players like Jim Rice, McNamara would not change his lineup or his batting order.

“In Joe’s first game as manager, you knew it was going to be different,” said Benzinger. “He dropped Jim Rice in the batting order (to seventh), and there was no asking Dwight (Evans) or Jim if it was OK with them.

“There are a lot of big egos on teams, but Joe doesn’t concern himself with that. Egos be damned, he’s going to do what is right, and who can argue with a guy who got a team to play like this?”

Boston won its first 12 games under Morgan, the best-ever mid-season debut by a major-league manager. With a 5-4 victory over Texas Aug. 3, Boston had won its 22nd straight home game, tying the American League record.

Second baseman Marty Barrett did not realize what Boston was capable of.

“If somebody told me at the start of this year, or early June, that we’d be in the record books, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said.

“Joe had a lot of faith in what we could do and it’s all just snowballed,” said Benzinger. “He’s been a miracle worker.”

From Cincinnati, Benzinger, 25, spent most of the last seven years in the minors. In that time he has listened to athletes and coaches dismiss the importance of camaraderie and team unity.

“It’s something that’s downplayed in professional sports, people say it’s just a business, you don’t need all that rah-rah stuff,” he said. “But you do need some of it. When everyone on the bench is rooting for you, you seem to do better, and you want to do better for them. Never in my life have I wanted to win more than I do now.”

Morgan, who seems to feel no pressure, will talk animatedly about the enjoyment to be found in the competition of a tight game. Benzinger echoes his manager’s freedom from worry.

“There’s no pressure. It’s just a game,” he shrugged, smiling. “We make good money and have a little fame. We do the job or don’t do the job, we can still walk off the field and be happy.”