White Sox play-by-play man Jason Benetti described Bill Walton, who will join him in the NBC Sports Chicago TV booth for the Sox-Angels game Friday at Angels Stadium, as a “gift.”
“His mind is a playground, an orchestra and a volcano all rolled into one,” said Benetti, who worked with Walton on college basketball at the Maui Invitational last November. “It is impossible to think of someone who takes the audience, and his broadcast partner, on more of a journey through the world, and to have that next to me is an honor and a treat.”
Nice, right?
Yeah, well, Walton sees Benetti’s nice and raises him a whole lot of weird.
🚨 BILL WALTON AND @jasonbenetti CALLING A WHITE SOX GAME?! 🚨
— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) August 9, 2019
This is about to be the greatest 👏 broadcast 👏 ever 👏 pic.twitter.com/NtAATC8aCb
Good weird, of course. Pretty much everybody loves, enjoys or at least gets a kick out of Walton, 66, who is easily the greatest combo of basketball legend, stream-of-consciousness yakker and skyscraping Deadhead ever to roam the Earth.
Those who can’t stand him need to wake up and smell the ridiculous, yet strangely poetic, fun.
“Whoa! The pressure is on now,” Walton said. “But, please, set your standards higher, Jason. And here I thought all along I was a trembling and exploding rainbow, morphing into a bus stop. I guess I’m going to have to reinvent myself one more time.
“Anyway, take me out to the ballgame. Put me in, Coach, I’m ready to play today. California, preaching on the burning shore; California, knock, knockin’ on the golden door. Please, where is the game, what time does it start, who’s playing, what sport is it and what’s your name again? Give me a chord, and I’m on my way. I hope the noise in my head is not bothering you.”
Steve Stone couldn’t have said it better, and wouldn’t have tried. He’s taking the Angels series off.
Young ‘Dreamers’
How excited are Sox players about the prospect of getting to play on the “Field of Dreams” diamond when the team faces the Yankees next August in Dyersville, Iowa?
About as excited as many of the children in the stands were Friday to stay after the Athletics-Sox game and watch “Field of Dreams” on the Guaranteed Rate Field scoreboard.
In other words: kinda?
A lot of the Sox — let alone their younger fans — haven’t seen the movie before. Do you feel old now?
Right-hander Lucas Giolito knows the famous story almost front to back, though his favorite baseball flick is “Bull Durham.” He comes from a show-biz family.
“It’s going to be cool, super-cool,” Giolito said. “I’ve been looking around the league the last couple of years [at] teams going all these different places to play baseball, and now we get to do one. That’s pretty cool. Get to head out to Iowa and play right in the cornfields.”
’String music
Third baseman Yoan Moncada took ground balls before the game, two days after taking batting practice from both sides of the plate in Detroit. Moncada, who hasn’t played since injuring his right hamstring July 30, is “much closer” to a return, manager Rick Renteria said.
“The tightness is starting to dissipate, and obviously you see him out there working,” Renteria said. “So he’s progressing well.”
