that sucks, but Jim Rome is better....and funnier too....
Peace to his soul, prayers for his family.
Too bad. I always liked Pete.
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 was the star, and he let everybody know it,"
Ahhh, if you are a REAL star you don't have to tell people.
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!''