Peter J. Franklin
Posted on 12/10/2004 7:07:31 AM PST by John W
that sucks, but Jim Rome is better....and funnier too....
Peace to his soul, prayers for his family.
Too bad. I always liked Pete.
I've met Joe Tait. Good guy.
"that sucks, but Jim Rome is better....and funnier too...."
I think you missed the point. Rome may or may not be better, but Franklin was first. Originality gives you extra points.
I listened to Pete for years. Pete owned Cleveland sports. And when a trade was made, we'd all listen to Pete to hear his reaction, (take). And no one, not even Rome, could skewer an idiot faster, or more thoroughly than Sweet Pete. RIP Pete Franklin.
I don't care for basketball that much but do listen just because he is announcing. He can do ANY sport and has done baseball and hockey. He is superb.
This raises euphemism to a new level. What really happened, and I heard it live on the radio, was that Franklin went nuts when Don Imus was hired at WFAN. He spent his entire segment screaming about working with this drug-addict alchoholic and shouting "Fire me, fire me, fire me" over and over again on the air.
Pete Franklin was also replaced by Mike and the Mad Dog and that was when WFAN really took off.
"Pete was the star, and he let everybody know it,"
Ahhh, if you are a REAL star you don't have to tell people.
I really think it was Imus. At the time he wasn't syndicated. He only worked at WFAN. By bringing in that big morning crowd, enough people got their dials tuned to WFAN to stay with it throughout the day to listen to the sports talk.
I remember when Mike Breen first started doing the sports reports on the Imus show, and I think he genuinely hated Imus at first. But eventually that made his career.
Posted on Fri, Dec. 10, 2004
Franklin `controversial, but fair'
Late sports talk radio host powerful voice on Northeast Ohio teams
By Gary Estwick
Beacon Journal staff writer
Pete Franklin, the abrasive and controversial radio personality whose sharp tongue entertained sports fans in Northeast Ohio and beyond for more than 20 years, died Nov. 23 in California after a long illness. He was 76.
Franklin passed without much fanfare, unlike his tenure behind a microphone.
``Sweet Pete'' was the inventor of local sports talk radio in the 1960s, and one of the first in the nation.
He gave sports fans an avenue to vent and celebrate the successes and failures of the Browns, Indians and Cavaliers.
``He was the first, and everybody else is just riding along on the wave he began,'' said Bill Needle, a local sports radio personality.
His callers gladly waited on hold for 90 minutes. Those that were too young were quickly rushed off the air.
``You should be in bed, you snot-nosed kid!'' Franklin often joked.
His funeral shows on Cleveland teams which tanked early in the season and soap opera spoofs delighted audiences in 38 states and Canada.
He later worked in New York City and California.
By then, Franklin had already mentored a generation of future radio personalities.
``There's some guys that try to be like him, there's a few that are close, but nobody's quite like him,'' said Dave Dombrowski, the Cavaliers' vice president of broadcasting.
Dombrowski, as well as Needle, tutored under Franklin.
Franklin didn't have a classic radio voice, but it didn't matter to the thousands of listeners who gathered in their living rooms, riveted to their radio for an entire evening.
His niche was creating a mystique that he knew everything. Maybe he did.
He once said that he ``played'' callers the same way disc jockeys played records.
He was flashy, calling himself the ``Ninth Wonder of the World.''
He was stimulating.
``He could take the most mundane, boring, uninteresting topic, and do four hours or six hours, and make it interesting, and make it riveting and just keep the show moving,'' Dombrowski said.
Everyone wanted to know his opinion, from team officials to moms.
He had his list of regulars: The Swami, The Prosecutor, Mr. Negative and Mr. Sour Apple. Mr. Know-It-All was later revealed to be Mike Trivisonno and became a local sports radio personality in Franklin's old radio spot.
Former Cavaliers star Campy Russell believed that Franklin was ``controversial, but always fair.''
And funny.
Steve in Brooklyn always wanted to talk about the Milwaukee Bucks.
``This guy was trying to be serious and Pete was making fun of him the entire time,'' Needle remembered. ``And the guy never caught on.''
His most controversial statements were aimed at then-Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien, who sued Franklin and WWWE radio for defamation of character. The case was eventually settled.
Needle's also remembered a segment of ``Pigskin Pete Predicts,'' when Franklin finagled one caller into a bet on an NFL game that was played the day before. As the caller picked the losing team, Franklin sounded off.
``I gotcha! I gotcha! I finally gotcha!''
Posted on Fri, Dec. 10, 2004
Akron Beacon Journal
Pete first, last word in sports
Franklin was pioneer in talk radio
By Terry Pluto
``My wife only listened to me once on the radio. She got so frightened, she never did again.''
-- Pete Franklin
The first time I heard Pete Franklin, I was in a car with my father. We were going to a Tribe game, and Franklin was doing his old Clubhouse Confidential pregame show.
I hadn't thought of Clubhouse Confidential for years until I heard of Franklin's death Thursday. He died Nov. 23 at age 76.
I don't remember what he was talking about that day in the late 1960s -- just the yelling.
He started rational, got worked up over something -- probably the Tribe's pitching. He used to say, ``Three things win games: Pitching, pitching and more pitching.''
And the Indians had none, which led Franklin to the doorstep of a nervous breakdown as I swear, Franklin's voice was shaking my dad's purple Chrysler 300.
I was ready to crawl under the seat. But my father roared with laughter, and he was not a man given to such outbursts.
I was 12 years old, and I loved my father, the man who took me to ballgames. And my father loved Pete Franklin from the moment he hit the Northeast Ohio airwaves in 1967.
Franklin was an original voice, a prophet howling all night on old WERE 1300-AM.
It really was all night -- 7-11 p.m., he did sports, then midnight-4 a.m., it was all-night talk on everything from your favorite ice cream to Vietnam to hippies.
``One night, I left the station and a bunch of Hell's Angels were waiting for me,'' Franklin once told me. ``I thought they were going to kill me. Instead, they came by to say they liked the show.''
Franklin was used to the long hours. He broke into the business in Oakdale, La., in 1952.
``I worked 70 hours a week, and my main job was to get to the station early and kill the snakes with a baseball bat,'' he told me. ``They came out of the swamp to the heat of the generator. And I read the farm news. The glamour of show business.''
Anyone who heard him will never forget him, because no one did sports talk back then like Pete Franklin.
``How can you wear a straitjacket and dial a phone at the same time?'`
-- Pete Franklin to a caller
In 1980, I met Pete Franklin. I was 24, the new baseball writer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He was the godfather of sports talk radio.
Franklin treated me like an equal. He was gracious, a good listener and a gentle spirit. I had heard this about Pete, but didn't believe it until that day when he had me on his show.
I admitted to Franklin that I once called him when I was a kid.
``What did you want?'' Franklin asked.
``I wanted to trade Joe Azcue for Clay Dalrymple,'' I said.
``What did I say?'' asked Franklin.
``You wanted to know why I wanted to trade one lousy catcher for another, then you hung up,'' I said.
Franklin laughed.
``I see I didn't keep you out of the business,'' he said.
Then, we did the show. A guy named ``Mr. Sour Apple'' called, complaining about everything.
``Pete, I've been thinking about the Indians all night,'' he said.
``With your brain, I believe it,'' Franklin said.
Then he launched into a tirade, calling the guy a moron and asking him, ``When did they let you out of the home?''
Through it all, Franklin was smiling, winking at me as if to say, ``How can you take any of this crapola seriously?''
``Crapola'' was one of his favorite words, and talking about Cleveland sports for more than two decades from the '60s to the '80s, he had plenty of reason to use it.
``If dog racing is such a great sport, name the greatest dog trainer of all time.''
-- Pete Franklin
Franklin hated the ``minor sports.''
You didn't talk to him about auto racing, dog racing, horse racing, indoor soccer or volleyball. He loathed bowling, billiards and golf.
``If Uncle Louie can play it, then it ain't a sport,'' he told me.
He stayed with the Big Three: Baseball, basketball and football. He knew a lot about them. Not as much as he claimed, since he said he knew everything. But he had an impressive memory and a wonderful ability to make points clearly.
Every Cleveland pro team owner respected and perhaps feared him a little. There was no other radio voice that mattered. He had as much clout as any columnist or writer in the area. When a trade was made, a coach fired or hired, most fans wondered, ``What does Pete think?''
Today, there are many Pete Franklin imitators, even if they don't know it. He left Cleveland in 1987 for New York and WFAN, the first all-sports station. He later worked in California. He was never as popular as in this area.
Franklin had a huge collection of jazz records and old movies. He was married to his wife Pat for virtually his entire adult life. He treated her with almost a formal chivalry, much as he did almost anyone he met off the air.
Cavaliers broadcaster Joe Tait said his favorite Pete Franklin moment was about 15 years ago when he went to Franklin's home.
``Pete cooked this lavish Italian meal, everything from pasta to salad,'' Tait said. ``He took great pride in that, and waited on me as if I were a king. I took pictures to prove it, and he was a very good cook.''
Franklin said he never talked about sports with his wife, and I believe it. I spent several months at his home in 1987 helping him write his only book, You Could Argue, But You'd Be Wrong.
He said, ``When something happens, I'll tell them that I told them so -- even if I didn't.''
Then he laughed.
``Anyway, who cares, it's just sports!'' he said. ``It's not like someone died.''
Those are wise words I've always remembered.
Messages for Terry Pluto can be left at 330-996-3816 or terrypluto2003@yahoo.com. Sign up for Terry's free, weekly e-mail newsletter ``Direct from Pluto'' at www.ohio.com.
"From 3WE, in Cleveland, this is Pete Franklin on The Sportsline, and I talk to more sports fans than anyone."
Pete always sat courtside next to Joe Tait at Cavs games when he was in Cleveland. No one is a better NBA radio play-by-play man than Joe, IMHO.
Peter J. Franklin
I was a faithful listener of Pete's for many years in Cleveland. Still can remember the words to the Jimmy Durante song he always played to close the show. Pete was always entertaining to listen to.
Jim Rome is also a pinko.
"From 3WE, in Cleveland, this is Pete Franklin. I see that my time is up. Thank you very much for your time."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.