Former Reds First Baseman Todd Benzinger Named Dragons New Manager

Dayton, Ohio-The Dayton Dragons announced today that Todd Benzinger has been selected as the Dragons' new manager by the club's major league affiliate, the Cincinnati Reds. 

 

Benzinger, 45, was the first baseman on the Reds' 1990 World Series championship club and recorded the final out of the series when he caught a foul pop off the bat of Oakland's Carney Lansford in the ninth inning of game four.  He spent nine years as a player in the major leagues with the Reds, Red Sox, Royals, Dodgers, and Giants, playing in 924 major league games.

 

Benzinger was signed by the Red Sox after being selected in the fourth round in the 1981 draft.  He reached the major leagues with the Red Sox in 1987 before being acquired by the Reds prior to the 1989 season.  He hit 17 home runs while batting .245 for the Reds in '89, playing in 161 of the team's 162 games.  In 1990, he appeared in nine of the Reds' 10 post-season games including all four World Series games after playing in 118 regular season games for Cincinnati and batting .253.  He was traded by the Reds to Kansas City in 1991 and concluded his major league playing career in 1995.

 

Benzinger is a Cincinnati-area native.  He was an All-American at New Richmond (Ohio) High School and now resides in Loveland.  He has enjoyed a highly-successful career coaching girls' high school basketball in the Cincinnati area since 1999.  Benzinger has also served as a color commentator on several Dragons television game broadcasts.

 

Benzinger had been named to the position of hitting coach for the Dragons in October.  However, Jamie Dismuke, who had been slated to manage the Dragons in 2009, accepted a position as hitting coach with the Atlanta Braves' Triple-A affiliate earlier this month, and the Reds selected Benzinger to fill the vacancy.

 

Tony Jaramillo will serve as the Dragons hitting coach after filling the same role with the Reds' Pioneer League affiliate, the Billings Mustangs, in 2008.  Jaramillo enjoyed a six-year professional playing career before moving into coaching in 2004 in the Detroit Tigers' organization, where he served as the hitting coach for the West Michigan Whitecaps for three seasons.  He is the nephew of highly-regarded major league hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, who has been with the Texas Rangers for the last 14 seasons and is known as one of the premier batting instructors in baseball.

 

Dragons 2009 Coaching Staff:

 

Manager: Todd Benzinger

Pitching Coach:  Rigo Beltran

Hitting Coach:  Tony Jaramillo