Jesse Franklin’s incredible freshman turnaround
By THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Writer
Before the six home runs
in nine games and before
the back-to-back Big Ten
Freshman of the Week
awards, Jesse Franklin sat
quietly in the dugout of Jet
Blue Park in Fort Myers,
Florida, waiting for a pass-
ing thunderstorm to sub-
side. He was coming off a
disappointing junior year
and needed to make the
most of the summer show-
case circuit to impress col-
lege coaches.
As it turns out, the
coach
Franklin
wanted
to impress most was 1300
miles away. As he waited for
play to resume, his phone
buzzed with a call from an
unknown number and only
one piece of information—
the location, ‘Ann Arbor,
Michigan.’
On the other end of the
phone was Michigan coach
Erik Bakich. By the time the
storm abated and Franklin
returned to the field, he had
found his top choice school.
“Honestly, I had never
really thought about Michi-
gan (until then),” Franklin
said. “ … (But) from that
point
on,
(Bakich)
was
really honest and really
straightforward with me
and believed in me. And
that’s the main reason that I
picked Michigan.”
Across the country, Max
Engel,
Franklin’s
high
school coach at Seattle
Prep, was out working in his
driveway when he received
the call from Bakich.
The two talked for an
hour and a half, about
everything from baseball
to schoolwork to Franklin’s
work ethic and relation-
ship with his teammates
and family. Much like his
star outfielder, Engel left
the conversation sold on the
Wolverines.
“I thought he asked all
the right questions,” Engel
said. “… I walked away from
that phone call feeling like
that would be a great place
for Jesse.”
A former first baseman
at Santa Clara University,
Engel knows the impor-
tance that coaching has on
a college player’s develop-
ment. So when big name
schools in California and
the SEC came calling dur-
ing
Franklin’s
dominant
senior season, Engel con-
tinued to push Franklin
toward Ann Arbor.
While he felt coaches at
those programs merely had
Franklin’s name on a list of
equally talented outfield-
ers, Bakich showed both the
coach and player a unique
sense of caring about the
individual.
“In all of my interactions
with coach Bakich,” Engel
said, “you walk away feeling
that he really has the best
interest of these players in
mind and that he’s gonna
build a program around car-
ing for the person.
“And I think to Jesse,
that’s something that really
appealed to him.”
Just a month into his
college career, that mind-
set began to reap benefits
for Franklin. 14 games into
the Wolverines’ season, the
freshman’s batting average
sat below .100, with four
times as many strikeouts as
hits.
Like most coaches would
have,
Bakich
reduced
Franklin’s role, and he saw
just eight at-bats over an
eleven game stretch in early
March. But unlike other
coaches, Bakich had the
faith in his freshman to give
him another shot.
***
Four years earlier, Frank-
lin made his high school
debut when Engel needed
a player and the JV coach
recommended him. That
afternoon, he started for
varsity
against
Andrew
Summerville, a Stanford-
bound senior at the time.
Franklin, a freshman who
had been on JV that morn-
ing, notched two base hits.
The next year, he broke
out with a .532 average as a
sophomore and was named
to the Seattle Times’ all-
area team. His performance
dipped a little his junior
year, which Engel attri-
butes to increased expec-
tations,
before
winning
Gatorade Player of the Year
in the state as a senior with
a .557 batting average, 20
extra-base hits and just two
strikeouts.
“We probably knew (he
was special) that day when
we called him up,” Engel
said, “and he cemented his
spot in the lineup but it sure
was a thrill watching him
develop and get better and
better and better each year.”
His performance was so
dominant that by the end of
his senior year, he personal-
ly knew most Major League
Baseball area scouts in the
pacific
northwest.
Engel
estimates six to 12 showed
up to every game, often
requiring Franklin to take
special batting practice.
Once, Engel took his seat
on a ferry ride to a game
and was approached by two
scouts, swarming him with
questions until the boat
reached shore. Somehow,
Franklin never felt the pres-
sure.
“I didn’t care what they
thought because I was just
gonna come here,” Franklin
said. “But the day Bakich
came to see me, I was kinda
messed up.”
Last year, Seattle Prep
did a service event with
an agency called Bridge of
Promise to play baseball
with youths and adults with
disabilities. Franklin dedi-
cated his day to a kid named
Dillon, who could not hold a
bat at the beginning of the
afternoon. By the end of the
day, he was able to hit soft
toss pitches.
A month later, Frank-
lin won Gatorade Player
of the Year and made the
accompanying donation to
Bridge of Promise. After the
original donation, Franklin
chose to write an optional
essay describing his expe-
riences with Dillon and
ultimately won Gatorade’s
essay contest, earning the
charity an additional 10,000
dollars.
***
Whether it was his atti-
tude or work ethic that
caused
his
turnaround,
Franklin quickly flipped the
switch.
“He really showed us—
myself, the coaches, his
teammates—a lot when he
started off the season very
poorly,” Bakich said. “He
had adversity for the first
time and that’s where you
find out a little bit about
yourself.
“He was not only work-
ing on his swing and his
defense but he’s working on
his speed, he’s out pushing
sleds, he’s just very driven,
very driven kid to succeed.
He showed everybody a lot
with that work ethic and
that consistency, and he just
has a drive to be great.”
Franklin’s drive is not
just a simple ploy to win
more playing time. Engel
describes Franklin as the
rare star who is also the
team’s
most
coachable
player. Even in high school
when he was hitting over
.500, Franklin was always
the one grabbing gear and
hustling on and off the field.
So when he was confront-
ed with a slump that may
have derailed many fresh-
men’s seasons, nobody close
to him was surprised when
Franklin remained unfazed.
“I knew that little slump
wasn’t going to hold up,”
Engel said. “And then when
he got hot, it was like ‘there
it is, he’s figured it out.’
“Everyone back home, we
all kind of knew, that’s not
gonna last.”
After not appearing at
all in a weekend series
against Bowling Green in
mid-March, Franklin estab-
lished himself in Michigan’s
lineup the following Tues-
day against Oakland in fit-
ting fashion. He blasted his
first career home run the
opposite way to left field —
something he and Engel had
worked on together every
batting practice.
“I’m sure if (Engel) was
here, he’d like that,” Frank-
lin said.
Since
then,
Franklin
is hitting .369 with eight
home runs. Seven of those
shots, along with 27 runs
batted-in, came in just a
16-game stretch. He has
been named Big Ten player
of the week, won three of
the last four freshman of
the week awards, and is the
front-runner to be crowned
the conference’s freshman
of the year.
Franklin’s ultimate goals,
though, extend far beyond
personal accolades. For the
first-year, putting his team
on the map is paramount—
not just in collegiate base-
ball circles, but in Ann
Arbor as well.
“I really want to go to
Omaha … because we want
people to take Michigan
baseball seriously.”
If the slugger keeps up
his tremendous play, Frank-
lin’s wish just may become
reality.
NATSUME ONO / DAILY
11
Thursday, May 3, 2018
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