Simeon Career Academy’s Terrance Robertson just doesn’t have it. His fastball’s got no zip, his off-speed pitches not enough break. Toeing the rubber against rival Whitney Young in a crucial conference game early this April, the Wolverines’ sophomore hits the leadoff hitter in the back, then throws an errant pickoff attempt past his first baseman’s outstretched glove. It’s not the start he’s hoping for. A ground ball sneaks into the hole on the right side of the infield, scoring the game’s first run. Robertson serves up a meek curve to the third hitter, who scalds a line drive to the outfield. Whitney Young’s cleanup hitter smashes a first-pitch fastball into the right-center gap, plating two more. Before the Simeon faithful even get settled into West Chatham Park’s lone rusty grandstand, the visitors have sent 13 batters to the plate, and eight have come around to score.
An inning later, after the home plate umpire calls the game on account of darkness (with Simeon six runs ahead), Franklin is thrilled. That morning, he’d mentioned how his talented team—7-4 through April 22—can, at times, lose focus. “You have to go out there and just play, play, play, play,” he says, clapping his hands for emphasis. “Just play like it’s the last game of your life.”
Any existing achievement gap is difficult to close at the high school level, where athletic budgets vary wildly between city, suburban, and parochial schools, and where city coaches rarely hold one job for longer than a cup of coffee.
As a nine-year-old, he organized his neighborhood’s first baseball team. The boys wore matching white T-shirts and called themselves the Mohawks. (They couldn’t coordinate footwear; Franklin only owned one pair of shoes.) Franklin started as a catcher, a position made more hazardous without a proper mask or chest protector, before switching to middle infield, where his quickness was a greater asset.
Most importantly, Simeon players would be tough. Franklin taught them to always face a high-pressure moment head-on. “He always talked about being scared and wanting to be in that situation and excel in that situation,” Kevin Coe, a 1993 graduate, recalls. “He was never satisfied.”
Despite the team’s success, proper funding for the Wolverines has been hard to come by. In 1983, during Simeon’s inaugural trip to the state finals in Springfield, the brakes on their rented bus went out three times, stranding the team on the side of a country road until the wee hours of the morning. Four years later, Franklin told the Reader‘s Steve Bogira that while he loved coaching, “the fund-raising is a headache.” Like a lot of CPL managers, he still pays his assistants out of his own paycheck.
