When people think of the Associated Press ranking stuff, they probably think about college football. That's what I would think of because, obviously, BC and UMass are never in it for football, so we have to complain about that (except BC was in it this year for a little bit).
But yeah, other than those news reports that go into every publication in America, they did something else that's cool. They decided to give Andrew Benintendi a shoutout.
According to the very reliable source BoSox Injection (nothing but love for them as a former contributor from May 2014 to mid-May 2014), Benintendi won the 2018 AP Play of the Year. Yes. The Play of the Year. This is not the Baseball Play of the Year. This is THE. PLAY. OF. THE. YEAR. This beat out plays in other sports too, and it must have beat out actual broadway productions as well, as the name implies it is about plays.
So which play are we talking about? Not Hamilton. But this diving grab which bailed Craig Kimbrel out of a bases loaded jam in the ALCS.
The catch put the Red Sox up 3-1 in the series. If he misses that ball, the series would've gone to 2-2 and who knows if the Red Sox would have won the World Series? If that ball got passed him, it probably would've been 3 runs for Houston.
So yeah, that's very well-deserved and it goes to show that Benintendi can get some appreciation on the national scale. He may be overlooked because he is teammates with Mookie Betts, JD Martinez, Chris Sale and others, but he is still growing and developing and yet, he has had two very impressive full big league seasons thus far.
Can't wait to see what he can do again next season. It should be excellent, per usual.