Inside Guardians’ Will Benson’s long journey to the majors: ‘This is my life’

CLEVELAND — Six years ago, Will Benson sat in the press interview room at Progressive Field at a small, round table littered with reporters’ voice recorders.

Benson flashed his Mickey Mouse socks, revealed his foxtail keychain good-luck charm, insisted he would continue to drive his 2001 Ford Explorer — even after landing a $2.5 million signing bonus as Cleveland’s first-round draft pick — and vowed to use his financial means to spread the baseball bug throughout his native Georgia.

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A lot has changed in those six years. Benson keeps those socks in his footwear rotation, but he ditched the keychain and his dad now drives the SUV with the six-digit odometer reading. That interview room is now a coaches office, but Benson hasn’t strayed far. He scooted next door, to Cleveland’s home clubhouse.

He admits now he naively thought he’d break into the majors the year after he was drafted, a teenager taking the big leagues by storm. That, of course, didn’t happen.

Benson had no idea the winding road he would travel to the majors, with a pit stop in a hastily formed independent league, with pitfalls at the plate that required him to repeat levels, and with pity for himself as he wondered whether the struggle — which had him wanting “to scream off the top of a mountain” — would ultimately pay dividends.

It was, in fact, worthwhile, and the validation struck him — in a Taco Bell, where he received the call to the majors two weeks ago — like a line drive generated from his powerful left-handed swing.

Earlier this summer, with some encouragement from field coordinator and long-time major-leaguer John McDonald, Benson studied video of Barry Bonds and Mike Trout. Benson marveled at how they squeezed the most out of every moment in the batter’s box, how they never afforded the pitcher any peace of mind. They refused to chase pitches out of the strike zone. When the pitcher missed his spot, they didn’t miss theirs. Even if they didn’t inflict damage, they flustered the guy on the mound.

“They were the toughest out,” Benson said.

Those principles have aided Benson in his breakout season. Throughout his climb to Triple A, Benson was a three-true-outcomes prototype. He walked a bunch. He struck out a ton. And he hit for some power.

This year, he altered his profile. He boosted his walk rate to an elite mark of 18.7 percent, and he reduced his strikeout rate from uncomfortably high to completely tolerable.

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Benson’s 2021 strikeout rate: 33.4 percent
Benson’s 2022 strikeout rate: 22.7 percent

He put more balls in play, hit for plenty of power, stole bases and pieced together an 89-game sample at Columbus that the organization deemed worthy of a promotion.

“There’s no lie,” Benson said. “It’s really fun. And it makes those tough days a little bit easier to deal with.”

There were countless days like that.

Take the summer of 2020, for instance. Benson was itching to play anywhere after the pandemic halted spring training. So, he participated in the Constellation Energy League, a five-week showcase held in Sugar Land, Texas.

“Damn,” Benson said, “that was tough.”

Benson aimed to grab some attention with his play, but he batted only .143 in 71 plate appearances and was sidelined a couple of weeks when his roommate contracted COVID. He described the entire experience as “another slap in my face,” but he reminded himself to keep his head down and work until it all paid off.

“There were times when I felt sorry for myself,” Benson said. “I was super low.”

Following the Guardians’ win in Detroit on Wednesday, Benson and Steven Kwan played chess. As they plotted their moves, they engaged in what Benson described as “the deepest conversation of all time,” one so “enriching and enlightening” he said he jotted down a bunch of notes in his journal afterward.

In spring 2021, when Benson and Kwan roomed together during spring training, Kwan introduced Benson to meditation.

“It opened up a new world,” Benson said.

Benson meditates for five to 10 minutes before he goes to sleep each night. He’ll meditate at other points in the day for upwards of a half hour. Throughout the 2021 season, Benson and Kwan would meditate together before heading to the ballpark.

Here’s how they describe it: They close their eyes and focus on their breath, concentrating on the air funneling through their noses as they inhale and leaving their mouths as they exhale. During that process, random thoughts will arise. What’s for lunch? What’s the plan for the off day? I wonder how Grandma’s feeling. They acknowledge the thoughts, identify that they have been distracted and then rush back to focusing on their breathing.

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“We are not our thoughts,” Kwan said. “Thoughts just pass by. It’s like a cloud in the sky. You wouldn’t say it’s a cloudy day because there’s one cloud in the sky. You look past that.”

And that’s where it translates to baseball. Benson learned he could combat the suffocating thoughts that surface when he’s in a slump.

“You’re focusing on your plan and all of a sudden a fan yells something,” Kwan said. “‘OK, well, no, I don’t suck.’ And then you go down this rabbit hole. It’s like, ‘No, identify that, and let me get back to my plan.’ It’s just that training of your brain. It’s like a muscle that you train.”

When he joined the Guardians at the beginning of the month, Benson shared a similar conversation with Cal Quantrill. Benson posted an .843 OPS at Double-A Akron in 2021, which earned him a promotion to Triple A. His production cratered, though, and that gnawed at him all winter.

“There are times when we get hit by these negative things and they weigh so heavily,” Benson told Quantrill, “but it’s really not, like, this big thing. Obviously, on the inside, it feels like this weight. I felt that weight and I’m like, ‘Man, I can’t believe this shit. I’m so close.'”

It consumed him. Reaching the majors was his dream since he and Xzavion Curry played for the Sandtown Red Sox, “the best kids team ever,” Benson said, laughing. (Curry will join Benson on the Guardians roster to make his big-league debut Monday.)

Benson has visions of a baseball “Mecca” in Fulton County, with an array of diamonds surrounding one main field. He wants to fund it, build it and make it accessible, “as free as possible” to counteract the expenses associated with travel ball. The longer he plays in the majors, he said, the more realistic his blueprint will become.

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Earning that promotion two weeks ago was a critical step. Benson was retrieving Taco Bell for his girlfriend when Columbus manager Andy Tracy told him to head to Cleveland. His parents were staying at the nearby Omni Hotel. They convened near the valet area, where they jumped up and down, hugged and screamed. Benson’s dad, Ted, played basketball while attending Purdue in the ’80s. His mom, Ramona, danced in college. His sister danced professionally around the world and now teaches the craft in London. There’s quite a bit of athletic prowess in the family.

Benson was gifted with some obvious tools: power, speed, versatility. The Guardians aren’t exactly sure how he fits or what his ceiling is. There’s time to sort that out. But the tools behind the tools — the drive to improve, using the resources at his disposal, the passion for the game that kept him motivated even when his future looked bleak — convinced the organization he’s worth a 40-man roster spot.

He has played all three outfield spots with the Guardians. He figures to get a look at first base, too. He’s a much different player than he was six years ago, fresh off his senior season at Westminster High School, outside of Atlanta. He thought he’d introduce himself in that interview room and then stroll into the on-deck circle. The process took a bit longer than he originally anticipated, but it was worth the wait.

“I just kept going and kept working,” Benson said. “This is my life.”

(Top photo: Ron Schwane / Associated Press)