Scott Franzke set to return to the Phillies’ booth, Jon Marks out at PHLY
Scott Franzke, in his 20th season calling Phillies games, missed a wild ending Monday night.
Phillies fans tuning into 94.1 WIP following the All-Star break have been wondering one thing: Where is Scott Franzke?
Franzke, the veteran play-by-play announcer in his 20th season calling Phillies games, has been on vacation, which he often takes during the All-Star break. He’s expected to return to the booth Tuesday or Wednesday as the team continues its series against Boston Red Sox.
Gregg Murphy, the longtime NBC Sports Philadelphia reporter who joined the Phillies radio broadcast in 2021, has been filling in. He was in the radio booth Monday alongside Kevin Stocker to call the Phillies’ unlikely win over the Red Sox on a catcher’s interference call.
“Game over on catcher’s interference!” Murphy exclaimed. “They walk it off in the most unusual fashion that you’re going to see … How about that?!”
Over on NBC Sports Philadelphia, Tom McCarthy exclaimed “Baseball is amazing!” following the umpire’s call, while John Kruk simply called it “a weird way to end the game.”
As my colleague Scott Lauber pointed out, it’s just the second time a catcher’s interference call has ended a game since 1920. It last happened in 1971, when Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer Johnny Bench was ruled to have interfered with then-Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Manny Mota on a steal of home.
As for the Phillies, the second game of their series against the Red Sox is set to begin at Citizens Bank Park at 6:45 p.m. on NBC Sports Philadelphia and WIP. The final game of the three-game series will take place Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. on ESPN.
After that, the Phillies will travel up I-95 to take on the New York Yankees in a three-game series, though fans hoping to watch at home will have to log on to Apple TV+ to stream the first game Friday night.
» READ MORE: Signing David Robertson makes Phillies’ quest for bullpen facelift tougher
Jon Marks out at PHLY
Even in the fast-paced world of sports media, that didn’t last long.
Former 94.1 WIP Jon Marks is out at PHLY less than a year after joining the Philly sports upstart.
Marks announced his departure on social media Tuesday morning and told The Inquirer it was his decision to leave PHLY.
He’s certainly not leaving on bad terms. Marks thanked PHLY general manager Vincent Pellegrini and his former 97.5 The Fanatic co-host Anthony Gargano for giving him a chance “to do a show when I had nothing else.”
Marks left WIP in December 2023, a surprising move considering his show with former Eagles linebacker Ike Reese was the top-rated program on Philly radio in its time slot (and remains so with co-hosts Spike Eskin and Jack Fritz).
It’s unclear what Marks’ next move will be. In addition to his role with PHLY, he also creates content for Parx Casino’s betPARX app.
PHLY launched in September 2023 as part of a multi-city expansion of DNVR in Denver called the ALLCITY Network, backed by more than $25 million in venture capital money.
While ALLCITY now has digital sports outlets in five cities, it went through a round of layoffs in December, which cost Renee Washington and JP Zapata their jobs at PHLY.
ALLCITY CEO Brandon Spano wasn’t available to comment, but said at the time ”strategic changes" were needed to “scale efficiently” as the network grew.