The Local Boys. Joe Heffron
renewed his climb to the majors by signing with the Reds as a free agent in 2000, spending the first half at AAA Louisville. During the All-Star break, he and his wife, Kelly, visited family and friends in Cincinnati, and during the drive back to Louisville, Reds farm director Billy Doran called, telling him to meet the team in Colorado. He was now a Red.
Used mostly as a pinch hitter, Bell got into 19 games but started just four, hitting .222. When the season ended, he signed with Colorado to play for his dad, who sent him to AAA. He was called up for a second chance in the majors in September 2001 when Jeff Cirillo was injured, but Major Leaque Baseball shut down for a week following the World Trade Center attack, and when play resumed, so did Cirillo. Bell says, “Given what was happening in the world, not going to the big leagues was the least of my concerns.”
He retired in 2005 and worked in banking for a year before getting back into baseball. He is now director of player development for the Diamondbacks. As for his brief time as a Red, he recalls fondly the home run he hit on September 27 at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. After the ball sailed over the left-field fence, Bell circled the bases, knowing that his grandfather and his father had also homered in the old ballpark. He says, “That was pretty special.”
LARRY BENTON
NOVEMBER 20, 1898–APRIL 3, 1953
Major League Career
1923–1935
Time as a Red
1930–1934
Position
PITCHER
“LUCKY LARRY” would have been a memorable nickname for Reds pitcher Larry Benton, but during his 13-year career he was never tagged with that moniker—mostly because he never had a whole lot of luck. He was born in Cincinnati, in the impoverished West End, but the family moved to St. Louis when he was still a child. Not long after the move, his mother died. According to his grandnephew Terry Lewnard, Larry’s father, unable to tend to three kids, sent them back to Cincinnati when Larry was around five years old to be raised by their maternal grandparents. Larry’s father remarried and moved, for his health, to Colorado. With as many as 11 people sharing a household, the family struggled financially, says Terry. Young Larry did whatever it took to survive.
Terry says that Benton was “kind of a high-strung, rebellious individual.” He learned the game on the sandlots of Cincinnati and played well enough to be signed by Portsmouth in the Virginia League at age 22. The powerful New York Giants grabbed him, but, just Larry’s luck, they traded him to the hapless Boston Braves, with whom he debuted in 1923. The Braves lost 100 games and finished seventh. The die for Benton’s career was cast. As Cincinnati Post sports columnist Pat Harmon noted a few days after Benton died, he had the misfortune to pitch six seasons for last-place teams and three seasons for teams that finished next to last. In 1925, on yet another weak Braves squad, Benton finished 14–7, leading the team in win percentage and ERA. Off to a good start the following year, he was traded back to the Giants and, for the first time, found himself in a fortunate situation.
He made the most of it, going 13–5 for the Giants and leading the National League in win percentage. The following year, he led the league again in that category, as well as in wins (25) and complete games (28). He was runner-up in innings pitched (310.1), which far exceeded what he’d pitched in previous seasons and likely led to arm problems. His career slowly went downhill from there. After struggling in 1929 and early in the next season, he was traded to the Reds, who gave up star second baseman Hughie Critz to the Giants. Reds owner Sidney Weil suffered serious losses in the stock market crash and dealt a number of his top players, leading to some of the worst years in franchise history. Larry Benton pitched through nearly five of them. Working in the rotation and in relief, he compiled a 33–52 record with the moribund Reds. He pitched strictly out of the bullpen his last year here, and then returned to the Braves for a final season, retiring at age 37.
Off the field, Benton courted the luck he lacked on it. “He lived the fast life,” recalls his nephew, Larry Lewnard, who noted that Benton was a flashy dresser who drove flashier cars. He counted among his friends some of the movers and shakers in the Newport nightlife scene. Nephew Larry recalls Benton, a long-time bachelor, marrying his wife, Ruth, in 1937 or ’38. The couple lived in an apartment in Westwood and had no children. She worked as an executive secretary in the office of Senator Robert A. Taft, while Benton got a job with the Cincinnati Transit Authority. But his bad luck continued when Ruth died of cancer in 1951. Two years later, while putting on the 14th hole at the Ridgewood Golf Club in Amberley Village, Benton told his friends, “I’ve got a hell of a crick in my neck” and dropped dead of a heart attack on the spot. An early, unfortunate end to a tough life. As grandnephew Terry phrased it: “Larry Benton was his own man who ran with the spirit of the way life took him.”
TODD BENZINGER
FEBRUARY 11, 1963–
Major League Career
1987–1995
Time as a Red
1989–1991
Position
FIRST BASE; OUTFIELD
WHILE PLAYING IN HIS BACKYARD or, perhaps, while falling asleep at night, many a local boy has dreamed of catching the final out in the final game of a World Series to seal a championship for the hometown team, but only one has ever done it for the Reds. And as long as he lives, that’s how he will be remembered in Cincinnati: Game 4, ninth inning, Randy Myers pitching to A’s third baseman Carney Lansford, who sliced a pop foul behind first base. Todd Benzinger went back on the ball, and when he squeezed it in his glove, pandemonium broke loose throughout Reds Country.
Benzinger was born in Dayton, Kentucky, but grew up in New Richmond. As a boy, he went to Reds games with his dad, as many as a dozen each year, sitting in the “top six”—the cheap seats at Riverfront Stadium—to watch the Big Red Machine. He even had a family connection to the team. His uncle, Don Gross, pitched for the Reds in 1955 and 1956. At New Richmond High School, Benzinger put up amazing numbers, which led to being named an All-American and to being drafted in the fourth round by the Red Sox in 1981.
A switch-hitting outfielder and first baseman, he earned steady promotions through the organization until in 1987 at AAA Pawtucket he caught fire and hit .323 with 13 home runs and 49 RBI in only 65 games. Boston called him to the majors, and he debuted on June 21. Red Sox fans still fondly recall his role in the team’s drive from nine games back to win the American League Eastern Division title in 1988, known as “Morgan Magic,” because the drive began when Joe Morgan took over as manager. Throughout the season, Benzinger hit well in the clutch—.394 with 33 RBI with runners on third; .381 with runners on third and two out, including five doubles and 16 RBI.
In that season, the Reds finished second in the National League West, and struggling first baseman Nick Esasky wanted to be traded, so the Reds sent him, along with reliever Rob Murphy, to Boston for Benzinger and two other players. The trade made front-page news on December 14, an Enquirer headline announcing, “Benzinger brings his bat home.” At the press conference, he told the media, “It’s nice to come home. It was a dream of mine in high school and it remained a dream of mine. It finally came true.”
He made his Reds debut on Opening Day, April 3, 1989. In the book Opening Day by John Erardi and Greg Rhodes, Benzinger says he looked up at the “top six” where he used to sit with his dad, and thought, “Hey, I’m on the field.” The bubble burst when Willie Randolph, the first batter, grounded to third baseman Chris Sabo, who fielded the ball and threw to first, where it hit the dirt and zoomed past Benzinger, who then turned and collided with Randolph, who was awarded second base due to the obstruction. The play was officially