Last month it was announced that longtime Chicago White Sox announcer Jason Benetti would become the new TV play-by-play voice of the Detroit Tigers.
Benetti on Parkins & Spiegel on Tuesday said the decision to leave his post in Chicago after eight seasons was not an easy one.
“The Tigers asked me a lot of questions about who I am, what I value, and what I care about in a telecast,” Benetti said. “And what I care about in a team and a team that I want to be on with a crew.”
“White Sox fans have done a lot for me in a lot of ways. But the Tigers and their aim to want to have the entire range in a telecast, and the way they’re building, was so appealing to me,” he later added. “And it all comes down to the idea of The Voice, where somebody hears you. And they had eight years of stuff that they watched. It all was out there, the entirety of what I do, and they said, ‘We want that.’ That is appealing to me and will be endlessly for my entire life.”
Jason Benetti was asked if he had ever given thought to the idea of being a career-long White Sox broadcaster, but Benetti said staying in one place for 40 years just isn’t who he is. When he felt like he can’t or shouldn’t leave his hometown team, that was when he knew he had to take the Tigers up on their offer.
“I know what it’s like to be comfortable. I know what it’s like to be in one place,” he said. “And part of what makes me, me, is I don’t like when other people tell me you can’t. But I really hate when my own mind tells me I can’t. Because sometimes in the past I’ve listened.”
“That’s when I really have to push back on myself,” he added.
Jason Benetti mentioned that there were little things that he wasn’t such a fan of when it came to working with the White Sox, things like eating on camera or singing, but you can’t exactly pinpoint one specific thing as the reason why he decided to move to Detroit.
“I’m just saying all this to tell you all that it is super complicated and there were a ton of factors,” he said. “But in the end, it really is a thing that I felt like I was pulled to do.”
