June 7, 2011

GENGA REMEMBERS A GREAT FRIEND AND SPORTSMAN

By Al Hemingway, Journal Inquirer

East Hartford — Every Tuesday morning for many years, people gathered at Frank’s Willow Inn on Main Street.

The group sat for hours and members talked about their favorite baseball teams, games, and players. And no one was more passionate about baseball, especially when he was discussing the Boston Red Sox, then the inn’s owner, Frank Benettieri.

“Those meetings were called the Willow Inn Tuesday Morning Hot Stove League,” state Rep. Henry Genga, D-East Hartford, a longtime friend of Benettieri, said. “They have been going on since I can remember. And they will continue, in honor of Frank.”

Benettieri, 72, died May 25, after a long bout with cancer. He leaves behind a legacy to the town because of his generosity and volunteerism, especially when it came to raising money for children with cancer.

Benettieri would travel to Winter Haven, Fla., to watch his beloved Red Sox in spring training and met Ted Williams through a mutual friend, Genga said.

“They remained good friends until Williams passed away in 2002,” Genga added.

Williams would travel to East Hartford and assist Benettieri in raising thousands of dollars for the Jimmy Fund, part of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

As a Little League coach, Benettieri left an “indelible impression” on numerous young baseball players, Scott Gray, sports commentator for WTIC-1080 radio in Hartford, said in a May 31 commentary.

Genga said Benettieri was a generous person who could not pass a person on the street asking for money without giving a couple of dollars.

“One time Frank anonymously gave a 12-year-old boy a replica of a Johnny Damon Red Sox jersey and an autographed baseball after the boy’s father died of cancer,” Genga said. “That’s the kind of guy Frank was.”

Since 1972, Benettieri had season tickets to Fenway Park in Boston, six rows behind the visitor’s dugout, Genga said.

Genga said one of the greatest memories he has was the time Benettieri invited him to go to Fenway Park in 2005; the year after the Red Sox finally won a World Series.

Genga, a diehard New York Yankees fan, traded jokes with Benettieri as they watched the game.

“I told him that the Red Sox didn’t know where to go to get a World Series trophy, they hadn’t won in so long, so they had to go visit the Yankees to find out where to get one,” Genga said.

One Christmas, Genga purchased a barstool with the Red Sox logo on the seat for Benettieri.

That stool will remain at the bar, no one will sit on it, with a picture of him in front of it, Genga said.

“You could not dislike Frank,” Genga added. “He was never a judgmental person. He touched a lot of lives.”