Royals game on Sunday will be called by broadcaster for one of their AL Central rivals

Jason Benetti got his start as a baseball broadcaster with the White Sox in 2016, but he’s since found work with ESPN and NBC Sports.

While he’s known best for calling White Sox games, Benetti also lends his voice to college basketball contests. And sometimes he will hear from Bally Sports Kansas City analyst Rex Hudler during the winter.

“Rex will text me during basketball season to be like, ‘Hey, I was watching this game and you were there.’ He’s awesome,” Benetti said. “I love Rex and I am so pumped to work with Rex because we’ve become friends simply by being in the same pressbox over and over again.

“And we’ve got running jokes. He’s a true joy of a person. There is no day where you don’t know Rex is in the building when Rex is in the building.”

Hudler and Benetti will be in the same building Sunday: the Rogers Centre in Toronto. They will be calling the Royals-Blue Jays game for NBC Sports’ streaming platform, Peacock, along with Blue Jays analyst Dan Plesac.

Royals fans won’t be able to watch the game on cable. Peacock is only available to stream in the Kansas City area, and its MLB games are on the premium tier.

Benetti hopes Royals fans will enjoy his fresh perspective on the team, and thinks the unusual grouping of broadcasters will spark interesting conversation.

“My whole deal is nobody in the audience cares if we just met for the first time or don’t talk to each other or don’t enjoy the same foods or they don’t have the same personality or whatever it is, right?” he said. “The audience tune in to have a good time with a baseball game.

“And so to me, it’s just about getting the best out of the guys next to me no matter who they are. And I just think the really cool thing about this first couple months of this (Peacock) package, and the reason I love it so much is we have gotten so much buy-in from everybody. Literally everybody wants to do it and wants to have fun and wants to talk to each other.”

As noted, Benetti and Hudler are friends, and they both know Plesac, so it won’t be three strangers in the booth.

Hudler said he plans to wear a World Series special jacket that also should spark conversation.

“I’m fired up,” Hudler said earlier this week. “I can’t wait.”

Ditto for Benetti.

“I’m pumped to work with both and we’ve been friends for years, all three of us individually, and we’ve never worked together,” Benetti said. “And so that’s the real fun of it.”