2/03/2007

The Big Game Bandwagon

Once again, MILB.com jumps on the big event bandwagon with a story about what might have been....

Bears' Benson passed on baseball
Super Bowl running back could have been 'next Bo Jackson'

[Cedric] Benson will take the field Sunday in Miami, looking to help the Chicago Bears win their first Super Bowl in more than two decades. But [Jesse] Benavidez, who coaches baseball at Robert E. Lee High School in Midland, Texas, believes that Benson could just as easily have been helping the Dodgers in their playoff push last October.

Benavidez has been the coach at RELHS for 16 years and was one of the first people to see Benson's potential as a baseball player. He certainly wasn't the last, though. The Dodgers, also sensing they may have found a Bo Jackson clone, selected Benson in the 12th round of the 2001 First-Year Player Draft, despite the fact he had already committed to the University of Texas to play football.

"He had all the tools to make it in the big leagues," Benavidez said. "To me, looking at him was like looking at the next Bo Jackson. He was a center fielder, and he had the tools. If he had spent more time with baseball, he would have been great at baseball. But they play so much football here that he didn't have a chance to participate in [serious] baseball [instruction] until the very end.


I think Benson made the right choice. Even if he wound up playing for the Bears.

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