The 2020 MLB season was unlike any other. Players, fans, and broadcasters alike all had to adjust to the shortened season while playing through a global pandemic. That meant no fans in the stands, leaving broadcasters to tell the whole story.
One of the most important moments of that season, especially for White Sox fans, was Lucas Giolito’s no-hitter on August 25th.
Chicago White Sox broadcaster Jason Benetti reminisced about calling Giolito’s no-no on the new Audacy Original Podcast “The PBP: Voices of Baseball” this week.
“It was as emotional as I’ve been about a game probably ever because I knew how much not being at games meant to some people who had Opening Day streaks broken and all that stuff,” Benetti said. “We were living in a really, really curious, questionable ‘Where are we going to go from here as a society?’ kind of time. There was just so much in all of our hearts and it was sitting right below the surface.”
The anticipation was building all game long, as it does during something as special as a no-hitter, and Benetti gave props to the broadcast crew for not going to a commercial break between innings as Giolito returned to the mound for the ninth inning.
It was extra special for Giolito as the former first-round pick bounced back from a horrendous season in 2018. He went 10-13 with a 6.13 ERA and 1.48 WHIP. Two years later, he was finishing off a no-no.
“Just to watch him go through all of that with the backdrop of him being truly – and he’d tell you – the worst pitcher in baseball as a starter in 2018. The fact that he had worked so hard to get to that point, we all felt like him, I think, in some ways,” Benetti said. “We all were going through the worst years of our lives and then this guy who just had the worst year of his life two years ago made the best moment of the season.”
The game was not only special for Giolito but Benetti as well. He received high praise after the game from one of the Sox players.
“About 12:30 in the morning I got a text from a player who was a part of it, it wasn’t Lucas, but I got a text from a player that said ‘I just watched the replay. That was awesome,” he recalled. “If we’ve done that job and I got that note from that player, that means that we did something that was powerful in some way. Powerful enough to get that note which I adore and I will cherish for a long long time.”
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