Ron Franklin, you will be missed

If you are the type of sports fan who just watches the game without paying any mind to who is broadcasting it, then you probably heard of Ron Franklin for the first time this week.

ESPN fired Franklin today for comments he made to colleague Jeannine Edwards at a production meeting before the Chick-Fil-A Bowl in Atlanta last Friday.

Reportedly, Franklin referred to Edwards as "Sweetcakes" during a discussion unrelated to football. When she rightfully objected, he called her "asshole."

That may be all most people care to know about this story.

But there is more to be said about an excellent play-by-play announcer who should not have lost his gig because of one high-profile mistake.

I have never met Franklin and probably never will. But I will miss hearing him on ESPN's coverage of college football and college basketball.

Franklin's college hoops partner, Fran Fraschilla, is someone I used to cover for Gannett Newspapers when Fraschilla coached at Manhattan College. Fraschilla and Franklin made an excellent team on Big 12 Conference games.

The Franklin-Fraschilla duo gave us no hype, no screaming, a few deadpan jokes and plenty of substance. They were consistently a good listen.

With a Texas twang, Franklin's booming voice easily cuts through crowd noise. Hence, he never screams at his audience. He knows football and hoops, and has an understated play-by-play style in the Ray Scott/Jack Buck tradition.

In today's era of screaming boyish chatterboxes in the play-by-play chair, people like Franklin are valued by sports fans like me.

Did I know Franklin was capable of obscene, sexist comments? No.

Did he deserve to be suspended? Yes.

Did I think he would be fired? Never.

At age 68, Franklin may never get another network gig, which has more to do with the way the business of sports television has changed than with any perceptible decline in his skills.

Considering that Vin Scully is in his 80s and still going strong as the voice of the Dodgers, Franklin might have been able to go another 10 years on ESPN had the network allowed it.

Franklin, who was a star sportscaster in Texas before joining ESPN 25 years ago, may decide to go local again. If that's the case, I hope to find one of his games on satellite sometime soon.

Finally, on the subject of what may have triggered Franklin's ugly comments toward Edwards, I say this not to try to excuse the inexcusable but to make this point: The ESPN of today--with sideline reporters as eye candy on football games despite the ladies' glaring lack of football knowledge--bears little resemblance to what ESPN used to be.

Franklin, I suspect, resented having to share air time with someone who lacked the credentials to be on a football telecast, someone with whom he never had to work back in the day.

Sideline reporters on ESPN, women such as Edwards, Erin Andrews, Heather Cox and Lisa Salters, add absolutely nothing to a game telecast.

Sideline reporters on football games are so irrelevant that CBS does not even use them on its NFL telecasts, and nobody misses them.

Eye candy disguised as sideline reporters exist, as former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson once told me, to give guys something pretty to look at.

Well, I don't need any more candy.

For me, the game is enough and it always will be.

I suspect Ron Franklin, a play-by-play man from the old school, felt the same way.

Hence, it did not take much for him to snap.

It's just too bad Franklin did not complain from a seat at the hotel bar like everyone else who strongly dislikes what the hyperbolic, shallow, always-be-selling ESPN has become.