EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: The following text, compiled by Pat Caputo\u2019s nephew, Rob Caputo, is shared with our readers with the permission of the family.<\/p>\n
Statement from the Caputo family<\/p>\n
For more than 40 years, Detroit\u2019s sports fans had Pat\u2019s full attention. In the months since his diagnosis, we have had it \u2014 listening as he has told us his stories: the ones from the press box, TV and radio studio, and the ones from his life. What follows is drawn from those conversations. The words are his.<\/p>\n
We share it now, on his behalf, as the goodbye he wants to leave for the people who wrote alongside him, the people who shared the microphone with him, the people who listened, and the people who read his work.<\/p>\n
We are all so proud of Pat and all his accomplishments. While he\u2019s leaving a void in our lives and in the community that he so proudly represented, he\u2019s made his mark and his legacy lives on. To his audience he was known as \u201cThe Book,\u201d but to us he was a cherished member of our family.<\/p>\n
We love you, Pat.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Caputo Family<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
A TRIBUTE TO A DETROIT LEGEND<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t said much publicly since January because I haven\u2019t known what to say,\u201d he told us.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019ll start where he started.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came out of college I had nothing on my resume. I couldn\u2019t type. In journalism class I never wrote anything anyone would want to read.\u201d The only useful thing he had, he said, was an idea he\u2019d picked up from a textbook somewhere \u2014 that \u201cnobody wanted to be a state capital correspondent, so the lane was wide open if you\u2019d take it.\u201d That became the only theory he ever had about this business: \u201cTake the job nobody else wants. Out-work them on the part nobody else cares about.\u201d A professor took pity on him and got him a tryout in Three Rivers, an hour and a half west of Kalamazoo, and he learned the trade there by photographing the Pet of the Week with a Sears camera. The job didn\u2019t last long. The boss called him in one day, he remembered, and explained, kindly, that \u201cI was just horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within a few weeks he had talked his way into answering phones at the Oakland Press sports desk, where he was so desperate to stick around he\u2019d raise his hand for any game nobody else wanted to cover. \u201cHey, can I do this one? Can I do that one?\u201d They almost always said yes, he said, because nobody else was going to drive to Lapeer on a Friday night in November to see two 4-and-5 teams play.<\/p>\n
He still couldn\u2019t type. Tom Kowalski \u2014 who half of his audience grew up listening to and the other half grew up reading \u2014 walked into the office one graveyard shift in the spring with his Taco Bell, watched Pat try to figure out a list of high-school track times one finger at a time, and announced to the room: \u201cThis guy has got some coordination problems.\u201d Pat, telling the story, said Kowalski wasn\u2019t wrong.<\/p>\n
After nine months they hired him full-time to cover high schools. \u201cI was 24 years old, and if you\u2019d told me then that I\u2019d get to cover sports and live in my one-bedroom apartment for the rest of my life, I would have been happy.\u201d He never had a grand plan that he would have such an amazing career. He had a fear, which is different. \u201cI was scared every day that I was going to lose the job,\u201d he said, \u201cso I worked it like I was going to lose it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The writing didn\u2019t come easy either. People sometimes asked him how he got better at it, and the only honest answer, he said, was \u201ca miracle.\u201d He wrote a lot. He asked people he respected to tell him what was wrong with what he\u2019d written, and then he listened to the answers \u2014 the part, he noted, that many young writers skip. The awards came later. They were nice. They didn\u2019t change anything he knew about himself.<\/p>\n
![\"Memorial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/TMD-L-CaputofromWojo-01.jpeg\")
The Detroit Pistons saved Pat Caputo a spot in the press room at Little Caesars Arena before the team\u2019s Game 2 vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday. The longtime Oakland Press reporter\/columnist and media personality died earlier in the day. (Photo courtesy of Bob Wojnowski)<\/p>\n
His dad used to tell him and his brothers, \u201cNever quit. Just keep coming.\u201d He didn\u2019t always live up to a lot of things, he said, but he did live up to that one. He got up every day and put the boots on. He didn\u2019t grade the day before he started it. If it was a thankless job, he did the thankless job. If it was a good day at the ballpark, he did that too. \u201cI\u2019d like to think I always did my very best,\u201d he told us. \u201cAnd if I get to leave you with anything, let it be that. Whatever it is you\u2019re up to tomorrow, do your very best at it. My very best wasn\u2019t necessarily anybody else\u2019s best. But it was mine, and I gave it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were things he never imagined as a kid from Michigan he\u2019d ever get to see. \u201cI got to watch games at the L.A. Coliseum and the Rose Bowl. That was a big deal for a kid growing up in Michigan,\u201d he said. He got to cover World Series and Super Bowls and Stanley Cup Finals and NBA Championships. He got a vote for the Heisman Trophy. He got a vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He took those last two seriously every year of his life, he said, because he knew what they meant. The people he got to know along the way are the part you can\u2019t put on a resume. He knew Sparky Anderson. He knew Bo Schembechler, who he said was a great man, and one he respected. Jim Leyland was one of a kind and someone he really enjoyed. He got to know Tom Izzo back when he was an up-and-coming assistant nobody outside East Lansing was talking about yet. Bill Lajoie, the Tigers\u2019 general manager when he started covering them, opened the door for a young writer trying to do this job, and Pat said he never forgot it. Lajoie was a mentor to him. He once played nine holes of golf with Don Shula, he said, because his editor at the Oakland Press, Gary Gilbert, called and asked him if he wanted to.<\/p>\n
![\"Sports](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/TMD-L-CaputoTigersFest2016main-01.jpg\")
Pat Caputo checks his notes at TigerFest in 2016, as he works a show for 97.1 The Ticket. Caputo died Thursday at age 67, but left a huge footprint in Southeast Michigan\u2019s sports scene. (MATTHEW B. MOWERY \u2014\u00a0MediaNews Group, file)<\/p>\n
He told us about one of the coolest moments of his career \u2014 October of \u201906, in the press box at Comerica Park, watching Magglio Ordo\u00f1ez hit one off Huston Street to send the Tigers to the World Series. The players came out onto the field with champagne bottles and started spraying the people in the seats. He sat up there with his notebook, he said, and remembered thinking, \u201cboy, they were really proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
The radio gave him something the print column never could. It let him cover the teams with his audience instead of just for them. It let him hear what they thought, take a punch from a caller, give one back, and argue about Detroit sports the way Detroit sports are supposed to be argued about \u2014 out loud, every day, on the air, with anybody who picked up the phone.<\/p>\n
None of that, he said, happens without people. The producers. The engineers. The people whose names the audience never heard, whose hands kept the show on the air every day for two decades. The colleagues who sat across the table from him, the ones he argued with and agreed with and learned from \u2014 every one of them, he said, made him better. \u201cI owe all of these people something I don\u2019t know how to pay back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The job \u2014 the actual job, the going-to-the-ballpark, going-to-the-press-box, sitting-at-the-microphone part of it \u2014 was, he said, one of the best parts of his life. Going to a place like Michigan State, when a kid like him had no business believing he\u2019d ever set foot on a campus like that, was another. The family he has, who have loved him through every part of this, is the rest of it.<\/p>\n
He made his final social media post in late January. He read every comment people sent him on X and on Facebook, he told us. Every single one. He wanted us to know what they did: they reminded him, in his own words, that \u201cI am blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lot of good things came to him in this life. He had always been thankful for that, he said. He had always been appreciative. He\u2019s not the guy you build a statue to. He never was. He was the guy who answered the phones, said yes to whatever game came up, learned to type one finger at a time, and somehow forty-plus years went by. \u201cI just got lucky,\u201d he said. \u201cI always have been.\u201d<\/p>\n
In these last months he has been surrounded by family who love him, and who he loves right back. They matter more to him, he said, than any of the rest of it.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR<\/p>\n
My Uncle Pat and I shared a special bond. He was my godfather. I was the best man at his wedding. We are both proud Michigan State alums. But truth be told, the bond we shared most closely was the same one he shared with his followers \u2014 sports. They were at the core of every conversation.<\/p>\n
Growing up, we played trivia games \u2014 quizzing each other on prospects\u2019 high schools, colleges, or where they ranked in Baseball America. Even at Christmas when he was sick, we were playing the game of naming the Tigers\u2019 first-round draft picks from the late \u201980s through last year. In true form, \u201cThe Book\u201d got every single one right.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to miss those conversations so very much.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Rob Caputo<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
The Caputo family extend their heartfelt gratitude to everyone who supported Pat throughout his career and during his illness. Thank you so very, very much. God bless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: The following text, compiled by Pat Caputo\u2019s nephew, Rob Caputo, is shared with our readers with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[111828,181,143,145,144,127],"class_list":["post-310597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-columnists","tag-latest-headlines","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}