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Posted Jan. 7, 2003 A Giant in townBenard brings big league work ethic to Richland home By Doug Flanagan Marvin Benard looked down at the green synthetic surface covering the floor of the indoor batting cage next to his Richland home and smiled. "People laugh when I tell them this," he said, "but some of this turf is from the old Kingdome." He pointed to a heap of baseball equipment - a batting helmet, a mitt and batting gloves - sitting in one corner of the building. "That stuff over there is Dominic Woody's," he said. "These batting gloves here" - his gaze turning toward two pairs of black gloves laying near the home plate area - "are mine and Jason's (Repko). Guys are like, why take their stuff home when they're just going to be here the next day anyway." To be sure, Benard's hitting cage has been filled with visitors over the last two winters. Benard, an outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, built the cage last winter when his family moved to Richland from Scottsdale, Ariz. Benard uses the cage almost daily during the offseason to keep his swing in tune and his batter's eye sharp. And usually he's not alone. Last winter, Benard, anxious for some interaction during his workouts, went to CBC baseball coach Scott Rogers - who knew of Benard's stellar career at Lewis-Clark State in the early 90s when he was coaching at Gonzaga - and asked him for not only some tips on building the best indoor cage he could, but also for permission for some of Rogers' players to utilize the cage during their offseasons. So it's not a surprise to see, on any given day, one or two of CBC's players, or one of the local professional players such as Richland grad Woody, who is in the Mariners' minor league system, or Hanford product Repko, who is a Dodgers farmhand, working out at Benard's place. It's a win-win situation for all involved. "They throw to me, I throw to them," said Benard, who will turn 33 on Jan. 20. "They keep me company. It helps me out too because I sit back and I watch them, say, go through their hitting, and there's a lot of things that they do that I know that I do. Some of it's wrong, and I know that it's wrong. But sometimes you don't see it unless someone else does it. That helps me out because it makes me correct (what I'm doing wrong)." For his part, Rogers is elated to have a major leaguer connected to his program. "He's been very generous," Rogers said. "He's a down-to-earth, grounded guy. He knows where he came from, and he just wants to share the wealth. He establishes an environment that's fun, but they're also there to work. His contributions have been invaluable to our guys." -- -- -- Benard was born in Bluefields, Nicaragua, and moved to Los Angeles with his mother and father when he was 12. After a stellar prep career at Bell High School, he went to L.A. Harbor Junior College in Wilmington, Calif., then L-C State in Lewiston, Idaho. It was there that he met Allison Burk, a Hanford graduate who was playing on the Warriors volleyball team in the winter of 1990. They married in September 1993 at the conclusion of Benard's season with the Clinton Lumber Jacks, the Giants' single-A Midwest League affiliate. (He was drafted by the Giants in 1991 and began his pro career in 1992.) After spending the past several winters living in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix, the Benards decided to take their children, Isaac, 7, and Haley, 4, and move to Richland last winter. "It's growing on me as time goes by," Benard said of the Tri-Cities. "It's a great place to live when you think about it. Once I left L.A. and went up to Idaho, when I went back home, I knew it wasn't for me anymore. I love hanging out with my buddies and I love being around my parents, but there's nothing there for me anymore. It's just different. You see life different." When he's not sweating through hours of cuts in his batting cage, Benard enjoys taking in local sporting events such as CBC volleyball and basketball games and prep football games. "I'm a sports guy," he said. "I love being around sports." -- -- -- On Jan. 4, Benard left for Nicaragua to play winter ball for Boer, one of the more popular teams in that country. He will then come back to Richland in February for a couple of weeks before departing to Scottsdale for spring training. For Benard, the decision to play winter ball - something he hasn't done since 1999 - was an easy one for two reasons. One, he will have an opportunity to visit the myriad family members that still live there. "I have uncles, bunch of aunts, grandmother, cousins everywhere," he said. The second reason was a more practical one: His 2002 season was cut short in late June when he suffered a major injury to his left knee diving for a foul ball at Pac Bell Park. "We were playing the Orioles and I was playing right field and there was a foul ball to the right side of the field toward the line, and I took off," he said. "I didn't know if I had a chance to get it or not, but I went over just in case. When I stopped, I just heard a big pop in my knee. My kneecap felt like it was on fire." Bernard was diagnosed with a torn miniscus. While performing arthroscopic surgery, Dr. Gary Fanton discovered a divot in another area of cartilage and had to drill into the femur, which created scar tissue to prevent arthritis from developing. He was on crutches for a month and missed eight weeks. "The decision to go play, for me, was pretty easy because of the fact that I hadn't played all year. Before I got hurt, I had about 125 at-bats," he said. "Once I came back, I think I got about another seven or eight. But it wasn't constructive, really. So if I don't play winter ball, it'd be like sitting out a whole year and then jumping back in." He started rehabbing the knee soon after the World Series in late October at the Tri-City Court Club. He now thinks the knee is 100 percent, but he won't know for sure until he tests it in Nicaragua. "A lot of it is mental," he said. "My tendons are a little bit weak right now, but once I start running around, doing baseball work, I think I'll be okay." -- -- -- The Giants were six outs away from a World Series victory in Game 6, but the Anaheim Angels stormed back to win the game 6-5 and take Game 7 to deny San Francisco its first world title since 1954. Benard wasn't on the active playoff roster because of his injury, but he was on the bench for the Series. Even when the Giants were on the cusp of victory, he knew they didn't have it wrapped up quite yet. "No," he said. "We're too superstitious." Case in point: For the majority of the fourth game of the National League Championship Series against the Cardinals, the Giants were struggling mightily to get anything going offensively against St. Louis pitcher Andy Benes. Benard was sitting in the dugout, then decided to go to the clubhouse for the last few innings. As soon as he disappeared through the dugout tunnel, the Giants mounted a furious rally, capped off by a Benito Santiago eighth-inning home run to take 4-2 lead. When closer Robb Nen came into the game to close it out in the ninth, Benard came back up to the dugout. Nen promptly allowed the first three batters to reach base and a run-scoring single to Jim Edmonds. Suddenly the Giants' lead was cut to one. "Next thing you know, guys are cussing me out, telling me to get back into the clubhouse because that's where (I was earlier)," he said. Nen eventually settled down to record the save in the Giants' 4-3 victory. -- -- -- After a flurry of offseason moves, the Giants, as of now, still have an opening in the outfield, which Benard could easily fill if he is healthy and returns to his form of 1999 and 2000, when he averaged 25 stolen bases, 14 home runs, a .352 on-base percentage and a .277 batting average as the leadoff hitter. Based on his stellar 1999 campaign, the Giants gave him a three-year, $11.1 million contract extension in the spring of 2000. But Benard promptly fell on hard times, suffering through back-to-back subpar seasons in 2000 and 2001. He lost his job as the everyday centerfielder in the summer of 2001 to Calvin Murray, and before last season the Giants traded for Tsuyoshi Shinjo to play center. Kenny Lofton patrolled center for the Giants in the playoffs after he was brought over from the White Sox last July. In a recent conversation with Sabean, Benard said he was promised the opportunity to receive significant playing time in 2003, but Benard knows that won't happen if his knee continues to bother him. "If I'm healthy, I think I'm going to play a lot," he said. "I think I'm going to help out a lot if I'm healthy. That's the key word. If I'm not healthy, then my role is going to be limited and I don't know where I'm going to fit. Health is the big key." With that in mind, Benard continues to dutfifully smack ball after ball at his indoor batting cage, vigorously working out with an eye toward the return of better times. | ||||||||||
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