2 days ago
Eight years later it's clear he made the wrong call on Benintendi vs. Judge, and other thoughts
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Which guy would you rather have on your team for the next 15 seasons?'
Judge or Benintendi?
Nine inches taller, and 100 pounds heavier than Boston's hot shot, Judge (6 feet 7 inches, 285 pounds), already had 32 homers at the time I posed the question and was clearly the AL's top rookie. But I liked our guy just a little better. Judge had a big hole in his swing and I saw Benintendi as a young Yaz, a pure talent who'd get better every year.
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And so . . . after many paragraphs on Big Poison vs. Little Poison — noting that Judge hit .155 (9 for 58) with one homer and two RBIs in his first 15 games against the Sox, while Benintendi had four homers and 12 RBIs against the Yankees — I concluded,
'I'm taking Benintendi,'
and it splashed down in the Globe under the headline, 'The vote here is Benintendi.'
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In an August 2017 column, Dan Shaughnessy asked himself who he'd rather have on the Red Sox for the next 15 years, Aaron Judge or Andrew Benintendi. Safe to say he missed the mark.
Boston Globe
Wow. In a half-century of opinions that sometimes didn't age well, this is one of the worst. It's right there with 'The Sox should sign Pablo Sandoval,' 'No way Nick Foles and Doug Peterson can beat Tom Brady and Bill Belichick,' and 'The Celtics are going to repeat in 2025.'
Put it this way: My Benintendi-over-Judge pick in 2017 would be like some dope in 1997 inheriting a bag of cash and thinking, 'Never mind this fledgling Apple stock, I think I'll sink all my dough into a chain of Blockbuster video stores.'
Benintendi, who turns 31 next month, played five seasons for Boston and made a critical catch when the powerhouse Red Sox beat the Astros in the 2018 ALCS and went on to win the World Series. In February 2021, the Sox traded him to Kansas City for Franchy Cordero (think I predicted Franchy would become Willie McCovey) and he was an All-Star with the Royals a year later. In 2023, Benintendi signed a five-year, $75 million contract with the White Sox, and he was with them when they lost 121 games last year. In his ninth big league season, Benintendi is a career .269 hitter, averaging 16 homers and 78 RBIs per 162 games. He's injury-prone but an above-average player when healthy.
In 2023, Andrew Benintendi signed a five-year, $75 million contract with the White Sox.
Frank Franklin II/Associated Press
The 33-year-old Judge, meanwhile, is drawing comparisons with Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. At this hour, he's on pace for the best non-steroid individual slugging season since Ruth more than 100 years ago. Judge leads the American League in batting, OBP, slugging, OPS, runs, and hits. He's a six-time All-Star, a two-time MVP, and hit 62 home runs in 2022. Last year, he batted .322 with 58 homers and 144 RBIs. This year, he's been even better. Four hundred total bases is not out of the question.
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He's also team captain, a fully accountable, legitimate leader. He dropped a ball in center field that triggered a Yankee collapse in Game 5 of last year's World Series at Yankee Stadium, but he has no trouble talking about the misplay and pledges to do better in 2025.
The Red Sox will see plenty of Judge this weekend in Yankee Stadium. He's got a good shot at returning to the World Series in October and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when his career is over. He's one of the all-time greats.
And yes. Upon further review, this dope concedes that Judge is even better than Andrew Benintendi.
⋅ Quiz: 1: Name four Celtics who are in the top 20 on the NBA career playoff assists list; 2. Name three Bruins who played more than 1,000 games with the Black and Gold, but played for no other NHL team (answers below).
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⋅ Inadvertent Metaphor Department: Jason Aldean's 'Full Throttle Tour' appearance at Fenway Park last weekend was canceled because of structural problems with the stage (sometimes this stuff writes itself, no?).
⋅ Red Sox broadcasters need to stop insulting our intelligence by pumping the tires of every non-horrible thing Sox players do. Trevor Story's 'breakout weekend' in Atlanta ended with him hitting .222. On Sunday, he struck out three more times after the Braves' starter made the mistake of throwing him a first-inning curveball (
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⋅ Forgive me if I'm not amused when ace Garrett Crochet (he of 14 career wins) tells the whole world he's going to throw a fastball to start every game. In Crochet's first 13 starts with the Red Sox, leadoff batters went 6 for 13 against him. Two of the leadoff hitters homered on the first pitch and Boston lost both games by a run. How is this a good thing for the Red Sox?
⋅ In a related matter, have you ever seen a bad baseball team do more in-game celebrating than the 2025 Red Sox?
⋅ Had a wonderful conversation with former (1963-65) Red Sox outfielder Jim Gosger. Jim was back in the news two weeks ago when a homebred colt named 'Gosger' (the horse is named in his honor)
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⋅ Thibs, We Hardly Knew Ye:
⋅ Do the Knicks and their fans feel just a little bit silly for their embarrassing overreaction to beating the Celtics in six games in the Eastern Conference semifinals? New York folks were renaming street signs after the early-round victory. Now they are watching the Finals, just like us.
Jalen Brunson and the Knicks beat the Celtics in six games, but then lost to the Pacers in six.
Michael Conroy/Associated Press
⋅ The Celtics and Pacers played six-game playoff series against the Knicks. Boston averaged 15 more 3-point attempts per game than Indiana in its six games vs. New York. The Pacers beat the Knicks in six. The Celtics lost in six. Wonder why?
⋅ The Pacers have never won the NBA Finals. Coach Larry Bird's team, led by Reggie Miller, lost to the Lakers in six in the 2000 Finals. The Pacers won ABA titles in 1970, '72, and '73, and joined the NBA in 1976.
⋅ The vaunted Worcester Telegram should be covering the NBA Finals. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle played a prep season at Worcester Academy before moving on to the Universities of Maine and Virginia. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault grew up in Leominster, was a student manager under Jim Calhoun at UConn, a mentee of former Holy Cross coach George Blaney, and a three-year assistant coach at HC. Daigneault's father, Rick, played baseball for the Crusaders and graduated in 1980. The Daigneault family has owned and run The Il Camino restaurant in Leominster since 1971.
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⋅ Deion Sanders, who's been dealing with health issues lately, returned to the public eye on Asante Samuel's May 30 podcast and acknowledged 'it did hurt' when
⋅ One of the best writers around, Mark Kriegel, has written 'Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson.' Buy it . . . If you like lacrosse, go for S.L. Price's 'The American Game.'
⋅ Know anyone named Brooks? It could be because of Hall of Fame Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson, who died in September 2023. In the late 1970s, after Reggie Jackson spent one year with the Orioles, then became famous as Mr. October with the Yankees, Jackson wanted a candy bar named after him and got his wish with the 'Reggie!' bar. Baltimore Associated Press sportswriter Gordon Beard said, 'In New York, they named a candy bar after Reggie Jackson. Here in Baltimore, we name our children after Brooks Robinson.'
Orioles Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson was beloved in Baltimore.
Associated Press
True. ESPN's Tim Kurkjian, a Maryland native, still speaks of a long-ago trip to Disney World when his children were young: 'I was hundreds of miles from home and twice within an hour people introduced themselves to me, told me they were from Baltimore, and said they were named after Brooks Robinson!'
In 1991, baseball's master choreographer, Dr. Charles Steinberg, then with the Orioles, presided over the closing weekend of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium (where the O's played before Camden Yards) and held a small promotion allowing fans named after Brooks Robinson to walk the warning track before a game. According to both Steinberg and Orioles PR boss Rick Vaughn, more than a couple dozen fans participated in the 'Parade of Brooks.'
One of my grandsons has 'Brooks' for a middle name. His then-very-pregnant mom was in Cooperstown for Induction Weekend in 2016, and met the classy Hall of Famer. When her son was born a few weeks later, she and her husband decided that Brooks would be a fine middle name. He's 8 now. A Triple A Little Leaguer. Plays third base.
⋅ RIP Brookline-born Sol Yas, who died May 23 at the age of 84. A lifelong sports fan, longtime friend of the late Duke Snider, and onetime GM of the Cape League's Brewster White Caps, Sol was a member of the Dodgertown Hall of Fame and the Cape League's Hall of Fame.
⋅ Quiz answers: 1: Rajon Rondo, Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Bob Cousy; 2. Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Wayne Cashman.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
