University of San Francisco Athletics

Beneditto Renna was born on October 14, 1924 in Hanford, CA and graduated from Hanford Union high School in 1942. He attended USF prior to enlisting in the Marine Corps and serving in the Pacific during World War II. He played football for the Dons for two seasons. After discharge, Renna attended Menlo College before transferring to Santa Clara University in 1947, where he was an outstanding athlete while playing baseball, basketball and football. Renna played in the East–West Shrine Game in 1949 and was selected for the All-American team that year. He was 6' 3", 218 lbs., and played blocker and backup quarterback in football and right field in baseball. He threw and batted right.

After graduating from Santa Clara, Bill's first year in pro baseball was with the 1949 Twin Falls Cowboys. Bill's manager with that team, Charlie Metro, had this to say about him: "Bill Renna was a big football player at Santa Clara who the Yankees signed and sent to Twin Falls his first year. He hit like heck up there, and they called him 'Bull,' because he was a big guy. He was a delight to have on the team.... I had difficulty with the college players. They had their minds set on the way they wanted to play. Not all of them were problems though. Bill Renna, from Santa Clara College, was great, one of the finest players I had enjoyed handling."

Renna played professionally from 1949 to 1959, joining the majors in 1953. He played with the New York Yankees, the Philadelphia Athletics, the Kansas City Athletics and the Boston Red Sox (Wikipedia).