DETROIT - Seated 21 rows behind home plate with the sun beaming down on a warm Saturday afternoon at Comerica Park, Chris Benintendi bounced his right leg in anticipation.

His son had just stepped to the plate.

"Come on, Andrew," Benintendi whispered.

Andrew, of course, is Andrew Benintendi, the Red Sox rookie outfielder. Here he came to the plate with the bases loaded in the third inning during the first weekend series of the 2017 season.

Benintendi's family made the four-hour drive to Detroit from his hometown, Madeira, Ohio, a small suburb of Cincinnati, in the southwest corner of the state.

On this particular trip, Benintendi's parents, Jill and Chris, his youngest sister Lilly, Jill's twin sister Joy, Chris' college roommate and best friend Chris Stokes, and Jill's parents, Donald and Doris Brookbank, made up his personal cheering section.

It was one of the smaller groups that's traveled to see Benintendi play. Jill's father had been in the hospital the previous week, but there was no way he was missing this trip. The group was decked in Red Sox shirts, hats and jerseys amid a sea of Tigers navy, white and orange.

At the plate, Benintendi swung and missed.

"Oh gosh that's the pitch to hit," his father said with a groan.

"You always get mad at him for swinging at the first pitch," Jill said.

"Not a first-pitch fastball over the middle of the plate," Chris replied.

Benintendi grounded into an inning-ending double play.

"I'm surprised they turned that double play given where that ball was," Chris said. "They were in a little bit."

Chris' good-natured in-game analysis is a running joke within the family and something they've all teased him about over the years.

"He's almost like a manager in his mind," the Red Sox outfielder said afterward. "The way he thinks and he understands the game and the situations and I think I've learned a lot from him in that aspect."

Benintendi's family, and particularly his dad, lives and dies with each pitch and each play.

A few months removed from his major league debut last August, the shine has not worn off for the close-knit midwestern family. Detroit was one of several road trips planned for this season to watch Benintendi, a preseason favorite for American League Rookie of the Year, play his first full year in the big leagues.

The family has already purchased a suite down the left field line at Great American Ballpark when the Red Sox travel to Cincinnati in September to play the Reds. They're expecting close to 100 friends and family members.

The Reds' park is about about 12 miles from the Benintendi's home in Madeira. But when Andrew was young, they didn't go to games all that often. He was more into playing the game than watching.

In their backyard, Chris would pitch him tennis balls.

"I'd heat it up a little bit and I'd say to Jill, 'I feel like I'm throwing real hard but he's hitting the ball pretty hard," he said.

Early on they noticed his smooth, natural swing.

"People ask me if I taught him that, and I'd say, 'No, I'm the first guy that didn't screw it up,'" Chris said. "I didn't teach him anything. As he got older, we'd talk about technique, about how to go from here to the ball, especially a little guy, you can't waste any movement. But beyond that, the swing itself is really what he's had."

It wasn't just hitting, though. Chris would take a tennis racket and smack the ball as high as he could into the air.

"He'd go flying around the backyard and catch it and we thought, 'Well, that's kind of cool,'" Chris said.

---

Back on the field, Benintendi stepped to the plate again for his third at-bat in the top of the sixth.

"I'd love to see a line drive here to left center field because he's out in front of everything," Chris said. "He's getting ground balls to the left side, see it deeper and maybe hit a line drive to left center."

"Come on Andrew!" Jill yelled.

Benintendi flied out to left on the next pitch.

Like most kids, Benintendi was dead set on becoming a pro baseball player. And like many parents, Chris and Jill encouraged him, but also wanted a realistic goal, too.

"We'd say to Andrew, you need Plan B and C. Get your education," Jill said.

Chris grew up on farmland in Georgetown, Ohio, about an hour southeast of Cincinnati, right on the Ohio River. His father, Robert, was the son of Italian immigrants, became a physician and his mother, Sally, a nurse. Robert, particularly, stressed education to their children.

After Chris played college ball at Whittenburg University, he went on to get his law degree.

"Chris' dad, when he calls Andrew, he'll ask, 'Have you read Sophocles yet?'" Jill said.

All four of Benintendi's grandparents have traveled to see him play since he reached the big leagues.

"As much as we enjoy it, we're so happy for my parents who are in their 80s, Jill's father who's in a wheelchair, but they get to see this and enjoy it," Chris said.

The quartet of grandparents made the trip to Cleveland for the American League Division Series last October. Benintendi homered in the third inning of Game 1. His mom caught video of it on her phone and made sure to pan to the grandparents for the pure joy in the moment. Benintendi saved that video to his phone.

"You ask (Jill's) dad and he'll probably say that's one probably one of his best moments in his life," Chris said.

Baseball was his main sport, but Benintendi excelled in basketball, too, at Madeira High School, the only public high school in his hometown.

The summer ball circuit was where he got most of his exposure, though, particularly with the Midland Redskins, a national powerhouse program that produced major leaguers like Barry Larkin, Ken Griffey, Zack Greinke and Mike Matheny.

Midland drew players from around the country, but was located about a half hour away from Madeira. Benintendi played for Midland's fall team during his sophomore year and the following summer he was slated to play for the U16 team. But when the U18 season began, a couple players from around the country hadn't arrived yet, and Benintendi got called up to fill in for a week. He impressed the coaches so much that they decided to keep him on the U18 roster, batting leadoff and playing center.

As a 15-year-old on the U18 team, Benintendi matured quickly. The oldest of 18 grandkids on his dad's side and second oldest of seven cousins on his mom's side, that maturity was already there, if unrefined.

His success at Midland led to several inquiries from Division I schools. He ultimately decided on Arkansas after visiting the school at the suggestion of a Midland teammate who was already on the Razorbacks team.

Benintendi posted mediocre numbers his freshman year hitting .276 with a .701 OPS. But his sophomore season put him on the map, hitting .376 with a 1.205 OPS, 20 homers, 13 doubles and two triples. He drew 50 walks and struck out 32 times.

Because he turned 21 within 40 days of the 2015 draft, Benintendi was a draft-eligible sophomore -- and teams were scrambling for looks at him. Boston was one of them.

Chris Mears was the Red Sox's area scout covering Arkansas and much of the midwest at the time.

"I felt like my connection with (Mears) was the best," Benintendi said. "He was a laid-back guy like me so it was easy to talk to him and joke around, so I felt that my relationship with Boston throughout the entire process was probably the most personable and probably the most comfortable."

The Red Sox had the No. 7 overall pick in 2015, thanks to a last-place finish in 2014. Benintendi was still on the board when it was their turn. The small-town, country kid was headed to Boston.

---

Back on the field in Detroit, Benintendi came to the plate for his fourth at-bat, this time against a lefty reliever.

Chris teased his 13-year-old daughter Lilly that it was her fault her brother hadn't gotten a hit yet because she wasn't cheering loud enough.

Benintendi swatted a 1-1 fastball to right.

"There we go!" Chris said.

"I thought we were going to be 0-for-Detroit," he added with a smile on his face.

In southwestern Ohio, Chris' five siblings all live relatively close by. When Andrew was in high school, his baseball and basketball games were a gathering spot for dozens of family members.

Brian, the youngest of Chris' brothers, hosts family watch parties for Benintendi's games in the garage that he's converted into a lounge. Posters, photos and school flags of all the Benintendi kids cover the walls and even the ceiling of the Garage Mahal, as they've named it.

To know the Benintendis is to be able to take a good joke. No one is safe.

One of the family's more epic pranks came in the Garage Mahal in 2015.

The family had a chance to watch one of Benintendi's Single-A Greenville Drive games on TV, so Brian invited Chris and Jill and his oldest brother Bobby to the garage.

Unbeknownst to Chris and Jill, Brian and Bobby had contacted Greenville play-by-play announcer Ed Jensen before the game to call in a favor.

"We're watching and Bobby my brother is videotaping the at-bat and 'I'm like Bobby what are you doing, we're watching the game?'" Chris said. "He says, 'I don't know, he may hit a home run or something.'

The Benintendi Garage Mahal.

"So the second time up, he's videotaping again. Jensen, as he's calling the game, he says, 'I had a chance to talk to Andrew today down in the dugout and I congratulated him on being the seventh overall pick of the Boston Red Sox. I said to him, I guess you can thank your dad back in Cincinnati for a lot of your success and Andrew says, 'No, not really. I've really got to thank my uncles Bobby and Brian who were my inspiration. Dad was mediocre. But Uncles Bobby and Brian inspired me to play baseball.'"

Chris knew right away his brothers had somehow pulled off the master joke coordinating with Jensen. He and Jill erupted in laughter.

"Here's what's funny about it," Chris said. "Brian had one hit in high school and Bobby probably had 10 or 15 so that's it. It was perfectly set up.

"I told Andrew if anybody asks you why you wear No. 16, you've got to say with a straight face, 'Well first of all my dad wore 16 in college, but secondly, it's the number of combined hits my Uncles Bobby and Brian had in high school.'"

---

Back at Comerica Park, the game ended in a 4-1 Red Sox loss. The Benintendis made plans to meet Andrew outside the clubhouse. Dinner that night consisted of pizza in the hotel room, low key per Andrew's request.

But when they met Andrew in the tunnel outside the visitors' clubhouse in Detroit, they found out he'd been battling a stomach bug and had thrown up in the tunnel next to dugout after his sixth-inning at-bat. That explained his subpar day at the plate, according to Chris.

They exchanged hugs, Jill ensuring her son that she was nearby if he needed her to be on sick duty, and agreed to hang out the following night so Andrew could get some rest.

After all, Jill and Chris had just been in Boston the previous week for Andrew's first big league Opening Day.

They had seats on the Green Monster, in the front row next to one of the light poles. In the fifth inning, Benintendi came to the plate and blasted a three-run homer into the seats. As he rounded second base, the normally reserved Benintendi, lifted his hand and pointed toward the Monster at his parents.

It reminded Chris of a time 10 years before when his then 12-year-old son playing in a tournament in Cooperstown, N.Y., hit his first homer over the fence and gave his parents a thumbs up as he rounded second base.

"It was a nice moment," Chris said, recalling Opening Day. "In fact, that moment to me probably meant way more than the home run in Cleveland (during the ALDS) because I was so happy for him and our parents (then).

"It was just something he did because he knew we were there."

It's been a whirlwind eight months for Benintendi, who's now managing those AL Rookie of the Year expectations. But like that time in Cooperstown, like Opening Day, and like that weekend in Detroit, his family has been there every step of the way.

Follow MassLive.com Red Sox beat reporter @jcmccaffrey on Twitter. She can be reached by email at jmccaffr@masslive.com.