Bowling With Mookie Betts: Red Sox Star Is on a Roll

The question catches Mookie Betts looking as though it were a backdoor slider.

The Boston Red Sox’s young center fielder is being asked to explain his love of bowling. After all, it’s a sunny Tuesday afternoon in late December, and he’s in the basement of the home of a 17-year-old bowling phenom named Kamron Doyle, rolling on the two lanes Doyle’s parents had installed when they built their 7,700-square-foot house in the tony Nashville suburb of Brentwood.

“I have no idea what it is about bowling,” says Betts, 23, who has brought six of his own 15-pound bowling balls just for this short practice session. “It’s just a love I have for it. I can’t even explain why. Bowling is just fun for me.”

But Betts takes his bowling seriously. His mother, Diana Benedict, is a longtime bowler, and she started him in the sport when he was 4.

She will admit basketball was his true love. Betts also dabbled in football through middle school (even playing with future Navy QB Keenan Reynolds), and always enjoyed bowling – “I grew up in bowling alleys,” he says – but was a terrific point guard, averaging 14 points, nine assists and three steals as a senior at John Overton High School in Nashville.

“He was the best player I ever coached,” says James McKee, his basketball coach at Overton. “He was that rare kid at that age who had the intellect and the ability to play at a high level. He understood that for us to be our best, he had to facilitate for others.”

His former coach says he and Betts sometimes golf together in the offseason. Wait, the guy can golf, too? “He won’t have played in however long and he’ll pick up a driver, hit it 280 and beat you,” McKee laughs.