This is the first year he’ll do weekly Saturday national baseball games for Fox.Īfter some negotiation, his new contract spells out how many Sox games he can miss - he said it’ll be 35, max - and that should go a long way to smoothing any rough patches with the team, at least for the next two years. (Ron Vesely / MLB Photos via Getty Images)ĭuring the season, some people with the White Sox weren’t so keen on Benetti being gone so much for his other jobs - though they have radio guy Len Kasper as perhaps the most overqualified fill-in in sports - and they let him know about it. Jason Benetti and Steve Stone have become a popular TV tandem in Chicago. The big issue between the Sox and Benetti was his schedule. 2, the talks were “kind of a pain.”īenetti said he and the Sox are on good terms, but he understood when Brewers pitcher Corbin Burnes talked about the awkwardness of arbitration. How much would you pay for a Mold-A-Rama figurine of Steve Stone?īenetti signed a new two-year White Sox contract in late January. We decided the White Sox need to bring these to the ballpark. “The actual product being made felt like a toy itself. “To me, it’s like, you turn the corner and you go to this exhibit or that exhibit, you go see, like, the cheetahs, and there would be one of these sitting there,” Benetti said. That is when the arresting smell of hot wax appears.įor most adults who grew up in the Chicago area, the smell of a Mold-A-Rama brings them back to childhood trips to a zoo or museum. It makes the mold (which is billed as “exclusive” on the machine) in front of you. The beauty of the Mold-A-Rama experience is the machine with its bright logo and its steampunk technology. A bust of Abe Lincoln, a gorilla, a spaceship, a submarine. Paul, Minn.īut there is something uniquely Chicago about Mold-A-Rama, which, for the uninitiated, is just a plastic mold of … something. qpPkPB1WOeĪccording to the company’s website, you can find Mold-A-Rama machines in Chicago at the Brookfield Zoo, the Field Museum and the MSI, along with the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., and zoos in Milwaukee, San Antonio and St. “It reminds me of my childhood.”Ĭoming soon to The Athletic, a meeting of two Chicago icons, and Mold-A-Rama. Benetti is a recognizable face in Chicago, so we figured he was going to ask what Steve Stone was like or what he thought of Tony La Russa, but the curious man just wants to talk about Mold-A-Ramas. “Fairgoers savored the warm smell of molten plastic as a memory-making sensation,” according to a display at the museum.Īs we were looking at a case of old designs, a man came up to us. He sold the company, which is now based in suburban Brookfield, and it wasn’t until the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle that Mold-A-Rama made a splash. banned plaster imports that were coming from Germany, so Miller pivoted to plastics. “Tike” Miller started making plaster figurines in his basement to sell to department stores. The Mold-A-Rama was created in Quincy, Ill., when J.H. “It’s like hot wax and it smells,” Benetti said. A sense of smell is like a time machine.Īnd with that in mind, we are transported back to Benetti’s childhood while on the first floor of the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park, where we are standing over a Mold-A-Rama machine, inhaling the aromatic bouquet of cooked plastic as a “space robot” is formed before our eyes. Odors go from the olfactory bulb in our nose straight to our amygdala and hippocampus, the brain regions associated with emotion and memory. Smell and memory are intertwined thanks to our brain’s anatomy. The organization recently developed and started a program specific to their 14-and-under and 16-and-under ACE (Amateur City Elite) programs.įishbein said it’s an opportunity to “teach them at an early age how important it is to utilize their mental approach to the game, but also how to take those same skills and utilize them for school, at home or even with themselves, so that they’re creating that psychological hardiness early on.”īurger has been open about his mental health, including inviting anyone interested in talking or seeking help to reach out in a 2020 tweet.Jason Benetti marvels at the variety of Mold-A-Rama figurines. “They’ve done an excellent job in making sure that not only are players educated, but they know there is help available to them if they desire to use it.” “The White Sox have been really proactive in making sure the resources are available for these players to utilize, and they’ve been more at the front lines of this for many, many years,” Fishbein said in a phone interview. Jeffrey Fishbein said mental, psychological and emotional health are priorities for the Sox. Therapy helped Chicago Bulls’ Andre Drummond regain his peace - and purpose: ‘I felt myself crying for help.
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