Phillies radio broadcaster Scott Franzke began Wednesday’s Phillies-Braves broadcast saying he wanted to “do something different.”
Franzke began by talking about his eight-year-old daughter June, who loves baseball. Earlier this season, June spent time with her father in the broadcast booth.
“Late in the game, she grabbed my binoculars off the table and started looking through them. Looking off in the distance. I thought she was looking into the stands. Then she pulled out a lineup sheet and stuck it in my face, pointing to it. I’m trying to watch the game, which is still going on and of course, that’s my job. I look away to call a pitch. Ball two. Low and outside. She points at the paper again and looks me in the eye with all the seriousness her sweet face could muster. She’s pointing at the No. 58. The name next to it. Domínguez. Swing and a miss. Fastball. Up in the zone. Two balls, two strikes. And then I get it: Seranthony Domínguez is there before us. He’s warming up in the center field bullpen. In the broadcasting business, she is now what we call the spotter. I didn’t even know she knew what the guys in the bullpen were out there for. She’s eight years old. She’s a second grader. She likes baseball.”
Scott Franzke on his eight-year-old daughter June.
Nineteen sets of parents, along with the families of two teachers who were killed, are now dealing with an unimaginable level of grief following a shooting rampage that took place at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas earlier this week. So many families are eulogizing the lives of their young children following the senseless tragedy. Franzke, a Texas native, shed some light on just how tough that is for the families of the victims.
“This is the story I would tell. This is how I would tell you, my friends. This is how I would tell the whole world, really, about my daughter June. This is the soundbite they’d run on camera through tears and choked speech. This is what I would say about my daughter if a man, a boy really, had walked in with a gun and opened fire at my child’s school. I would be crying. My wife would be inconsolable. My friends and family would be in the frame supporting us through our grief. This is what you would see. You might even weep a little bit too watching, but you wouldn’t weep for us really, you’d get choked up because you would think of your own son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter. Max or Emma or David or Michael or whoever. You’d think to yourself: ‘Man, I can’t even imagine what he’s going through.'”
Franzke closed his message with a call for change along with a biting description of June’s active shooter drill at school.
“Folks, for those listening, I want you to know that I believe this is the greatest country in the world, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have problems,” Franzke said. “And it doesn’t mean we can’t be better. We have a gun problem. We have a mental health problem. And we have an anger problem. And all of us have the power to make a difference in one of these three areas. Big ways. Small ways. All ways. Choose your way to help. Please.”
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