Kris made his retirement official yesterday, ending his 9 season career that saw him travel to 5 different cities. Benson's career had two sides: normal and crazy. On the normal side of his career, he came up to the majors with considerable talent and was an effective pitcher for his career (4.42 ERA, I'll take that!) but was also bogged down with injuries. Before the 2005 season, he signed a 3 year deal worth about 22.5 million dollars, with the New York Mets. He was then later traded to the Orioles before the 2007 season for Jorge Julio and Jon Maine in one of my favorite, at the time, series of trades by Minaya. Essentially Minaya took Benson and flipped him for two starting pitchers as he would trade Jorge Julio for El Duque. Anyway, Benson struggled with the Orioles due to injuries and living in Baltimore at the time, i can say that fans like him. Specifically the injury that brought him down was a tear of his rotator cuff in 2007. He wouldn't make another major league start until 2009. Normal career right?
Benson felt that his wife's comments and actions were part of the reason for his trade. While we will never know for sure (Minaya denies it, he made a good trade, but Anna could have had impact on Kris's departure) we do know that Anna Benson was a distraction. There were the comments about sex on the Howard Stern show, her inappropriate attire for the Mets holiday party (which is really an outreach event for children) and her comments about Carlos Delgado. If you recall, Delgado did not stand in 2006 for God Bless America as protest for the War In Iraq, which is completely fine. That is not a baseball issue, its a political issue, and Delgado has the full right to display his opinion as he wishes. This upset Anna who made public comments on the issue.
It is murky about if the comments played a role in Kris's trade to the Orioles. To be honest, I like evidence before buying into a claim, so I'm going to take the trade as a baseball move, which was a good one at the time. The actions of Anna Benson though are entangled in Kris Benson's career, so it feels fitting to remember her as well in a Kris Benson retirement article.
