Jason Benetti has become one of Major League Baseball's best broadcasters. It's a combination of lots of things -- especially his ability to drop esoteric knowledge capable of captivating an audience full of dads.
There may be no better example of this than during Monday night's Washington Nationals-Detroit Tigers game. This was a late September game between two teams with zero postseason hopes. Still, Benetti found a way to make a first inning at-bat notable. That's when Riley Greene came to the plate, donning Detroit's special City Connect uniforms. As it turns out, Greene has absolutely raked in the Tigers' otherwise pretty unremarkable alternates. His OPS -- on-base percentage plus slugging percentage -- was an absurd 1.666.
1666 rang a bell
for Benetti. It also marked the beginning of the Austro-Turkish War (the sixth one, specifically). This led to a reference only history buffs could enjoy, then a brief stunned silence in the booth and, finally, a perfect camera cutaway to bust Benetti's nerd chops.
Jason Benetti gets roasted by his own production crew with the camera cut after his Austro-Turkish War reference.#DNMW #Tigers
— Carter Lowe (@soxq.bsky.social) 2026-09-22T00:31:04.399Z
"Geek" about sums it up, even if Benetti didn't correctly name *which* Austro-Turkish war it was. Green grounded out, putting his City Connect OPS at risk of falling to the Crusade of Varna levels. Benetti, however, remains one of the best in the business.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Jason Benetti's deep cut Austro-Turkish War reference earned a perfect camera response
