Trea Turner thanked a WIP producer for turning his season around and pushing the Phillies into October

Eight weeks ago, Turner looked lost. Then he was cheered. Now he enters the playoffs as himself again, grateful for an unlikely show of support.

WIP producer, Jack Fritz is photographed on Friday in Philadelphia.Read moreJose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

by Matt Breen

Published Oct. 2, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Jack Fritz was driving home from work in August when a buddy sent him a text. The fans at Citizens Bank Park were cheering for Trea Turner — then one of baseball’s least productive hitters — before the game even started.

Fritz, a producer at 94.1 WIP, led the charge that day on sports talk radio for Phillies fans to greet Turner with a standing ovation. Turner’s struggles seemed to be weighing on the team’s $300 million shortstop. A cheer, Fritz thought, could ease that burden. But a roar before the first pitch? Fritz wasn’t expecting that.

“I almost couldn’t believe that it was going to happen,” Fritz said. “Once I saw that tweet, I was like ‘Wow we might be in for something. I didn’t expect it to be as rousing as it was. The fans took it and ran with it. It was insane.”

Fritz, 29, grew up in West Chester and went to Bloomsburg University to study finance and play baseball. His plans changed when he realized he wasn’t the best at math and he could no longer pitch the way he did in high school.

“I think my arm was kind of cooked,” Fritz said. “I have no idea what happened. I had a cutter that I could throw for a strike in high school whenever I wanted and I got a ton of strikeouts on it. The second I stepped on campus, I lost it. I couldn’t throw it again.”

“I was the Trea Turner of Bloomsburg. I was terrible. I was awful. Maybe, I needed a standing ovation from the Bloomsburg crowd.”

Fritz started listening to sports talk radio — “They get to talk sports and argue all day. That sounds fun,” Fritz said — and changed gears. He interned at 97.5 The Fanatic and stayed in touch with hosts Jon Marks and James Seltzer, who soon moved to WIP. Fritz graduated in 2016 and returned home without a job. He drove for Uber and worked for his family’s dog bone company.

“I was baking dog bones by myself in a church kitchen,” Fritz said. “It was me there all day listening to sports radio and trying to figure out what sounded good and stuff like that. I actually think that was pretty valuable.”

He found an opening when Marks and Seltzer helped him get a job on WIP’s “street team,” which sent Fritz out to assist at the station’s live events. Fritz wasn’t on the air but it was a chance to say he worked for the station.

Six months later, he landed a part-time gig producing the station’s overnight programming. He parlayed that into producing an evening show and then became Marks’ producer in 2018 on the afternoon show he hosts with Ike Reese.

Fritz said he struggled at Bloomsburg to understand that if he worked hard for two years, he could finish school starting for the Huskies. He was the No. 1 starter at West Chester Rustin so why should he wait for his turn in college? That thinking — “faulty logic,” Fritz said — changed when he was making those dog bones. He was determined to do whatever it took to get a job in radio.

“I got to the point where ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Fritz said. “I always thought about my 40s in my 20s if that makes sense. If I don’t put the work in now, if I don’t say yes to everything, if I don’t figure out how to host, if I don’t do all this extra stuff to make money, then I’m not going to be in a good position when my 40s roll around to help put my kids through college and stuff like that. At 18 I did not have the foresight or the proper perspective, but that’s part of growing up as well. I just sunk my teeth into it and my wife has been very supportive.”

Maybe that’s why he urged fans in August to get behind Turner. The Phillies lost a game in Miami after Turner booted a grounder and went hitless. Turner seemed despondent afterwards — “He looked like he was going to cry,” Fritz said — as he told reporters in the clubhouse that “I’m the reason we lost.” Turner finished his interview and went to the batting cage, where he took swings until after midnight. He was struggling, but he was still working.

Fritz tweeted the following afternoon that “a standing O on Friday would go a long way.” Others had similar thoughts — Fritz credits former Williamsport Sun-Gazette sports writer Mitch Rupert with being first — and the idea started to gain traction.

Fritz discussed it that evening on the radio after the Phillies game before WIP’s morning and midday shows kept the ball rolling on Friday. There wasn’t much else to talk about as Eagles’ training camp was just starting. A standing ovation for a struggling ballplayer was perfect fodder for talk radio.

“We were all on the same side of it,” Fritz said. “Four hours of listening to that and the push on social media, I think the station just threw its arms around it and wanted it to happen.”

The Phillies returned home that night and the crowd did more than just cheer for Turner before the game. They greeted each at-bat with a standing ovation, a reaction usually reserved for a returning hero like Chase Utley playing for the Dodgers or a dramatic home run. This time, the fans in South Philly rose for a player hitting .235 with an .657 OPS. Lance Parrish and Danny Tartabull didn’t get standing ovations.

“People were like ‘He doesn’t deserve a standing ovation.’ I said ‘Yeah, I know he doesn’t deserve one,’” Fritz said. “He doesn’t deserve a ‘standing O’ at all. He wasn’t playing well. But for the people who got it and got behind it, it was more about a human moment. It was seeing that a guy was caring a lot and was taking every struggle at the plate into the field and every struggle in the field to the plate. He was trying and he looked like he needed a pick-me-up. That’s kind of what happened.”

Turner homered the next night and has since been one of baseball’s best hitters. He hit .337 in 48 games following the ovation with 16 homers and a 1.057 OPS, the fourth-highest mark in the majors. Maybe it was his work in the batting cage or the adjustment he made with his swing. Or maybe it was just Turner — one of baseball’s best players before signing last winter with the Phillies — returning to form. Or perhaps it was Fritz’s call for an ovation.

“If it did anything, I think it just took the pressure off,” Fritz said. “Obviously, it didn’t have him start hitting. But I think it eased his tension, which was the whole message behind it. This is a guy who has a lot of expectations and I didn’t want him to feel like an enemy in his own ballpark. I’m sure he’s thinking after that error and losing them the game, ‘Oh bleep. I’m going to show up Friday and this place is going to be on me.’ I think if anything, it let him take a deep breath and go be Trea Turner.”

Fritz screens calls for four hours every weekday from “first time/long times” so he knows the Philadelphia fan is still demanding and intense. The fans still want to see effort and love players who get their uniform dirty. Run hard to first base and they’ll love you, Jason Kelce said before the Super Bowl.

But the ovation for Turner — and the way the fans treated Alec Bohm last season after he said he hated it here — show that there’s more nuance to the Philly fan than outsiders want to admit.

“This generation’s Dirty 30 is now giving standing ovations instead of booing the quarterback,” said Fritz, referencing the group of WIP listeners who booed Donovan McNabb in 1999 after the Eagles drafted him. “It’s weird but I think it’s actually showing more of who we are. We can still have accountability. We’re still tough. Look at how people talk about the Sixers, right? People are really mad at the Sixers. But I think this has been such a shockwave to the national people of like. No, these people just care a lot. That’s never changed. We care a ton.”

“We’ve become more of an understanding fan base. I think that’s the biggest change. Obviously, 20 years ago, if Trea Turner signs and he was bad, I don’t think that happens. It’s a totally different landscape. I think the fan has changed. I don’t think the fan is so ‘Ahh! Get this guy out of here! He’s a bum!’ No, this guy is a $300 million player. He’s a top-15 player in baseball. Let’s try not to ruin his experience here. Let’s see if we can pick him up and help him out.”

Turner called WIP on Wednesday, a day after the Phillies clinched a postseason berth and thanked the “Marks & Reese Show” for what they did. This stretch, Turner said, is “probably the best I’ve hit in my life.” Eight weeks ago, he looked lost. Then he was cheered. Now Turner enters the playoffs as himself again. And the ovation on Tuesday will be loud.

“Obviously, the whole thing happened and the rest is kind of history,” Turner told the station. “Started playing a lot better and it was thanks to you guys and the crowd.”