Richard C. Benesh - Sept. 5, 1956 - Nov. 28, 2020

 

Our teammate and friend Rich Benesh passed away while at home.  Rich was on several JPL teams -  In the past few years he was on The Sharks (b-league) and The Homers (c-league). He also played in Burbank on a senior league team called the Panthers. He was known for his quick whipping swing that consistently shot the ball to right field. His batting average was very high.        

 

Online memorial.

 

Rich's famous swing. 

The following was written by Rich's b-league manager and friend, Richard Chen.

 

Holy cow, Rich was 64! He didn't seem that old because he was still a fearsome hitter with his beautiful 12 to 6 swing. I swear he could still fall out of bed and hit a line drive to right / right-center.

 

Lifetime Shark stats: 

Years: 1996-2019

Seasons: 64

At bats: 1923

Runs: 1107

Hits: 1282

RBIs: 991

Walks: 265

Average: .667

OBP: .722 (includes reached on errors) Even in his last season, he was 19 for 25 with three walks. He was a hitting machine.

 

Defense - well, youch. In the last decade, we had to move him off 1B because he was sapping the confidence of our left-side infielders, and at 2B, any pop-up that wasn't landing within 10 feet of his initial position was trouble. His eyesight contributed to that, for he had cataract surgery a few years ago. But before that, he was solid. I remember sticking that bear of a man in RF out of necessity, and of course the other team lined one out there, but Rich broke perfectly and caught it on the run. I remember pre-Sharks he played 3B for Last Gasp, and on a grounder to him that he played back, I started from 2B and avoided his pump tag by 5 feet, but the stupid ump with zero angle called me out. Rich said nothing then, but he taunted me about it for the next 30 years.

 

Before Sharks, he was on Last Gasp, then Party Machine before that. For C League, he was a full-time Homer since 1997, and a Heavy Hitter before that, and maybe more. It was such a coup to steal him, both times. Who knew those thefts would last a quarter-century? And the thing is, he probably had another decade to go as a positively contributing player. And besides the playing, he immeasurably helped Scott Morgan and Sam Dolinar run the entire Softball program, a voice for the really good players who put our work league first. During recent pandemic chats, a few of us were bouncing around the thought of running a league next year in case JPL Softball can't, and I thought insurance might be a problem, but he dismissed that, that all that did was cover cars getting hit and such. He knew what a great resource the program has been to the camraderie aspect of JPL, and I'll speak for him to say that he'd hope that all JPLers who so desire get a chance to form bonds like these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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