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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