Pat Caputo Still Reminds Me Of Lewis Grizzard

Pat Caputo

Lewis Grizzard



I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

It’s posted all over this blog and my other sites for people to see – so I have no problem reaffirming this publicly yet again.

Pat Caputo is the best sports writer – best sports radio talk show host – best commentator on sports news in the greater Detroit Metropolitan area.

Including Windsor, which Caputo himself proclaimed to be “South Detroit” by way of expressing his displeasure for a specific Journey rock song played at the Joe Louis arena during Red Wing games.

Pat’s a personality to be sure.

He’s “The Book On Sports” – or simply “The Book” for short.

A character indeed.

He is a character of high character, in my personal and as always humble opinion.

I started following Caputo after hearing him on the radio, now broadcast on FM 97.1 The Ticket – Pat has been a mainstay on the radio waves keeping listeners involved in Detroit sports teams.

I’m a baseball fan myself.

Nobody in this town talks baseball like Pat Caputo.

Or hockey.

Or football.

Pat reminds me a lot – an awful lot – of my favorite sports columnist from The Atlanta Constitution and Journal – Lewis Grizzard. Grizzard was a masterful story teller who told you the story of the game as though you were sitting and talking to him. And he was deeply proud of growing up and being a Southerner – telling wonderful stories of growing up in his hometown Moreland, Georgia.

He loved and defended the area he grew up in – defending southerners against the often belittling Northerners who stereotyped all Southerners as … well … dumb.

That just plain ain’t true.

And Grizzard was also cited on several cases for being a racist – once being sued by a reporter who worked for Grizzard when he was the editor of a Chicago newspaper – a case Lewis won – although it didn’t matter much because once a stigma like being a racists is put in the minds of the masses – it sticks.

But Grizzard wrote exactly as he spoke. Charming, witty, and poignant.

And that is where most of all I draw the comparison between Pat Caputo and Lewis Grizzard. Both writers have been nationally celebrated and honored. Both writing with the same ease and manner in which they speak. Both personalities transcending the newspapers they wrote for to become easily recognized celebrities in their regions.

One a northerner who will stand up for the aching sorrows that Detroit has been through the last four decades; as the city tries so desperately to pull itself back up by its bootstraps to recover to the truly beautiful place it once was and in many ways still is at the corner of Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie – sitting in the middle of the mighty Detroit River.

The other a southern gentleman who stands up against the wrongfully projected stereotypes of what Georgia was by telling stories of his parents who divorced, and the local neighborhood population of Moreland.

Both do so with humor, with honesty, with some humility and with a little extra … panache.

But the days that Caputo writes and talks about are much different today than those of Lewis Grizzard some twenty years ago.

There’s more media today. And that media is interactive. There’s this whole Internet thing, you know.

The Book writes a blog online for the Oakland Press called “Open Book: A Sports Blog”. Caputo’s blog is the first I ever really followed – and is honestly the very reason I started headstuffing. Pat even helped me out here and there along the way.

Similarly it was Lewis Grizzard who inspired me to pick Journalism as a freshman in Georgia.

You couldn't really comment on a newspaper column in the old days - except by writing a letter to the editor. And lot's of such letters were written regarding one column or another of Lewis Grizzards. Sometimes Grizzard even wrote columns about the letters to the editor of readers despising him for one reason or the others.


I comment on Caputo's Open Book blog quite frequently. The collection of usual suspects that loyally comment are an eclectic bunch who really know their stuff and often expand the commentary from a single line of thought to a conversation that is held over weeks.

I’m the dumbest one in that eclectic crowd.

Conversations about who should hit second in the Tiger’s line up, and what’s really wrong with the bull pen and who could the Tiger’s get to play second base and who could the Tiger’s give up, and … well, you know … the usual sports blog / call in radio show kind of stuff.

But on the Open Book, we all kind of know each other – and we all kind of know the Book. And he kind of knows us too.

I liken it best to stopping into my favorite pub on my way home from work to sit and talk about the topics of the day with all the other guys like me who stop in the same pub – for a quick pop, but more so for the great conversation that is omnipresent.

But – as on any other blog – even including my own – are the anonymous commentators who insult and belittle the author – in stealth mode most often – not leaving a name behind their insults and put-downs.

Caputo publishes all these comments – wanting sincerely I believe to be transparent and allow his naysayers to have their say.

A lot of them are very rude. And Pat answers them with dignity – and usually with the response that everyone is entitled to an opinion. And the Book On Sports allows all opinions to be expressed.

I admire Pat for that.

I wonder – would Lewis Grizzard – should he still be alive today – would he have had a blog? I bet he would have – albeit he hated newfangled gadgetry like word processors – preferring the clicks of a typewriter and the ring of the carriage at the end of sentence flying back to begin the first word of the next paragraph.

And I wonder how Lewis Grizzard would have responded to such insulting comments posted about him on his own blog. I’m certain that he would have published them. But unlike Caputo – Grizzard would have cherished the opportunity to rip into each one just to hone his ability to craft the best retort.

Grizzard’s retorts would have been simple, sharp, and plainly stated in the tone of a true Southern gentleman:

“... And you sir are libelous scoundrel”.

Wasted Or Not

I took my eldest daughter to the emergency room the other night.


Suddenly in the middle of dinner, Alannah started grabbing her foot and howling that it was broken. It came out of nowhere, although she had complained of cramping earlier in the day. When I tried to massage it at the table (a manners faux pas for certain), she screamed even louder.

I told her to wash her hands and face, brush her teeth and go to bed. But before she even started changing her clothes, she started howling even louder.

I grabbed my coat and put on my shoes and said, “Well, Darling, I guess we have to go to the emergency room”. I was certain this would scare the howling out of her. But instead she got up on her good foot, and hopped down the stairs to get her coat.

“Okay”, she said between sobs.

Now you might think me heartless for not believing Alannah, but she’s not above faking an illness to get out of the next day’s school, especially when that next day is the first day back after a four day Easter weekend holiday.

So we hopped in the car and we drove to the hospital. Not a howl or even a whimper from Alannah sitting in the backseat. Instead she was talkative as Tiger’s baseball talk with Pat Caputo was on the radio.

Hmmm.

I parked on the street – because it’s free and I am cheap. Alannah climbed out the car and started to hop to the Emergency Room down the street. I couldn’t see her hopping the whole way – although I was tempted to let her try – So I picked up her seventy pound frame and put her up on my shoulders.

I put her down as we entered the building. The attendant at the door – the guy predisposed to telling everyone to wash their hands before entering – pointed to a wheel chair in the corner that my again hopping daughter could use.

Then he told us to wash our hands.

Inside, the place was packed. The waiting room at this hospital is perpetually packed. So we took our seat and waited the twenty minutes or so to be seen by the triage nurse, then to get admitted at the registration table.

“What’s wrong sweetie?”, asked the Triage Nurse.

“My foot hurts”, said Alannah – simply stating what in her mind was a fact.

“Does this hurt?” asked the Triage Nurse as she squeezed and poked different parts of the foot.

“Ouch”, exclaimed Alannah, as calmly as an “ouch” can be exclaimed.

The Triage Nurse looked at me, and I simply raised an eyebrow in reply.

We found the only two seats left in the waiting room, very close to the cubical the Triage Nurse occupied. And we waited.

And we waited.

Alannah formed my coat into a pillow, and we waited. It was now midnight and Jimmy Kimmel was on the waiting room TV, although the sound too low to hear back in the corner we camped in.

And we waited.

After Jimmy Kimmel was over – and most of the same faces still waiting in the room, the traffic into the room picked up. Alannah woke up and started taking notice.

“Daddy, why is that man wearing a dress?”, she asked of a Shiite Muslim man wearing a turban and robes, and clearly not feeling well.

“Daddy, why is that baby crying so much?”, she asked of a newborn who appeared to me to simply have a bad case of colic.

Then, in came a mother with her seventeen year old daughter. The daughter was distant and clearly stoned and out of sorts as the mother was guiding her like one would guide a child who fell asleep on the couch to their bed. The girl was despondent and nearly incoherent.

From our location we could not help but hear the conversation. “

She took my pills!", exclaimed the Irritated Mother to the Triage Nurse.

The Despondent Daughter simply stared into space. She listed off what seemed like a list of narcotics and blood pressure medicine and sleeping pills.

The Triage Nurse became panicked and started yelling instructions to the already Irritated Mother, and time was wasted as they argued about who to call to bring the pill bottles from home, and why hadn’t the Irritated Mother thought to do so.

After the arguing – the Triage Nurse asked the Despondent Daughter why she had taken all these pills.

“Who cares”, replied the Despondent Daughter. “Because, I guess”.

In a few seconds more – two attendants rushed over with a gurney to rush the girl to an area called Poison Control to have her stomach pumped.

Alannah heard all this. And twice I subtly nudged her to look straight ahead instead of staring at the girl, who looked like the kind of girl that under different circumstances Alannah would have looked up to.

And then we waited some more.

Finally, Alannah’s name was called, and we were ushered into a second waiting room. Alone, I asked her what she thought about the Despondent Daughter’s predicament.

“She was dumb Dad”, she said. “I don’t get it”. Alannah was kind of shaken up by what she witnessed.

So we sat and had a conversation about how sometimes people try to hurt themselves thinking it will make others around them take notice. And that people do take notice, for all the wrong reasons, and that person is then looked upon differently. And that sometimes the person’s plan … backfires. They go to sleep and don’t wake up.

Alannah looked at me with big eyes. And she hugged me and I hugged her back.

A doctor came to see Alannah, looked at her foot and sent her away for x-rays. As we waited, Alannah was still and quiet. After another long wait the doctor returned.

The hands of the clock on the wall read 4:05 AM.

“Honey, there is nothing wrong with your foot”, said the doctor. “You can go home now”.

“Oh, that’s good”, said Alannah and she got up out of the wheel chair and started hopping down the isle.

I thanked the doctor – who reconfirmed to me that she really is fine. It could be growing pains but there is no sign of anything at all on the x-ray. I picked Alannah up and put her back on my shoulders. As were leaving we passed the stall where the Despondent Daughter was recovering having had her stomach pumped. Her Irritated Mother sitting beside her, looking more put out than concerned.

Then we passed Alannah’s x-rays on the light table, so we stopped and I pointed out to her that all her bones looked strong and no lines showing breaks – and nothing was swollen.

“That’s good, right Daddy?”

“That’s very good.”

“Are you mad at me Daddy?”

“No, I am relieved. But I hope you weren’t pretending for attention and to get out of school?”

Alannah didn’t answer, but she hugged my head as she rode on my shoulders.

We got home at 4:30 AM. Alannah went to bed as did I. But when the alarm clock rang at 6:30, I didn’t wake Alannah. Instead only Ashley-Rae got up with me, and we got ready for work and school.

But if you ask me if that was a wasted all-nighter at the hospital that night, I would say no. I think maybe … just maybe … Alannah was supposed to be there with me – to witness the Despondent Daughter and her Irritated Mother, and learn a lesson.

A lesson about how dangerous looking for attention can really be.

I'm a Loser ... Baby ...

It’s amazing really .., how hearing an old song takes you back in time.


Yesterday I found myself flipping through the radio stations available to us here in Windsor – a cornucopia of different formats between Windsor in Canada and Detroit in the U.S. when I heard an old lyric of an old song that brought back on such memory … oddly enough.

“Soyyyyyy … un perdedorrrrrrrr ………. I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?”

Odd lyrics to bring back a happy memory, I will confess.

It was 1993. It was winter time, and I was in the passenger seat of a rented car as Ross Atkinson and I drove through the streets of Fargo North Dakota. And we were on our way to what I think was a pivotal point in my professional career in IT.

Ross was my boss in a software shop for a company in London, Ontario. And I had been given the luxury – a luxury only a programmer could appreciate – to be locked in a room for six months isolated from the rest of the world to write code.

The little desk stereo that blared music in my little white stone block room while my fingers pounded out the code in my head is still sitting in my garage right now – blaring Pat Caputo sports radio talk as I pound out the words to this story.

In 1993, our little company was indeed small – a team of maybe seven programmers – each locked away in their own little isolation booths – pounding out code for projects that we thought were groundbreaking in the day.

My project was a suite of programs to be used by the people who manufacture and sell the Bobcat skid steer loaders -back then the company was actually called the Melroe Company after the inventor of the Bobcat – and the piece of that suite of programs at the time was to allow Bobcat mechanics across North America to submit manufacturer warranty claims.

It sent the warranty claims over the Internet.

Windows wasn’t yet an operating system.

Netscape was the new browser – the only browser – and no web sites were yet doing business – they were just electronic billboards back then.

But we were submitting business transactions over the internet. In 1993.

And on this day that we heard these lyrics by Beck – for the first time – Ross and I were finishing a week in Fargo where we sat in their lobby and we wrote the frame work and prototype on a laptop sitting on each of our knees – I would code a piece – copy it to a diskette, and hand it to Ross who would insert the diskette in his laptop and test it – find a bug and I would fix it on the fly.

We did that for a week. When we had a question – we would go find the person at Bobcat’s head office that could answer it, go back to the lobby – and sit down and pound out more code.

The night before was spent in Ross’s hotel room – doing the same thing – writing code and testing it – passing diskette’s back and forth – and the time flew by until it was one o’clock in the morning – and we came to the conclusion that our work was finally done.

The next morning – Friday morning – we would go back to the Bobcat head offices – and demonstrate our final product – prototype that it was – to a bunch of Midwestern conservatives in suites and cowboy boots.

I can’t speak for Ross, but I was nervous. I could feel the hotel continental breakfast of a stale sweet roll and bad coffee churning in my gut as we climbed into the little rented four door Ford sedan and Ross turned on the radio to break the tension. After a couple of minutes of ads played as all morning stations play, on came the lyrics …

“Soyyyyyy … un perdedorrrrrrrr ………. I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?”

I looked at Ross. Ross looked at me.

“This is inspirational”, I quipped.

“I hope it’s not an omen”, replied Ross.

Then we started singing along when it came to the point in the song “…I’m a loser baby so why don’t you kill me”.

And then we started laughing. And making more bad jokes that made us laugh even harder.

I don’t think this is the response that Beck was looking for when he wrote this song.

I don’t know what the hell kind of response a guy who writes such lyrics is looking for, but our falling down laughing while the car swerves on the streets is probably not that response.

When we pulled into the parking lot of Bobcat headquarters – Ross and I had to sit there for a minute to compose ourselves – trying to stop laughing – trying desperately to compose ourselves before going inside – but failing as we continued to break out and break up as we made the walk around to the front door.

“You guys look happy today?”, said the Bobcat executive clad in a suit with a flannel shirt and one of the string neckties and cowboy boots.

“We’re ready!”, we smiled and we set up for the demo.

As the group assembled in the executive board room … presidents and VPs and service and manufacturing departments managers … politcally conservativess who's music tastes leaned stronly towards country and western ... the usual small talk took place as it always does before a meeting … and after a week of working with these people … we had a good enough rapport with them that we could explain why were still laughing. They were as shocked by the lyrics as we were – and joined in on our fun.

The demonstration went very well – flawless actually – as showed how the service person would fill in the claim - save it – send it over the internet to Bobcat’s single mainframe computer – and receive a “receipt” message back to confirm the transaction worked.

And throughout the demonstration … somebody … sometimes me … sometimes Ross … and sometimes one of the executives at the table … would spit out the poorly sung lyrics …

“I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me”

We got the deal. With big handshakes all around we got the deal to refine the proto-type to a finished product and distribute to all their North American dealerships. And everyone was laughing and joking the whole time.

We held that agreement through 1999. And we made a pretty good buck off that product as well as others that naturally followed. We extended it to work as a Windows program and then to include web page services as well.

And we spent many more weeks in Fargo while doing so.

It was a great experience – as I learned that day that no matter who you are doing business with … the business goes much smoother if you are having fun … and having fun with all involved.

I miss those days. The days in my career before structured development environments with multiple levels of IT people standing between the programmer and the business user … the days when a programmer could be cut loose to write code out of their head.

I listened to those lyrics in my car yesterday and I smiled. And I sang along …

“Soyyyyyy … un perdedorrrrrrrr ………. I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?”

I still don’t understand the song … and I certainly don’t condone such a mindset as he paints in this song.

But because of this memory, it is one of my favorite.

Shifting Back To A New Center

My mornings always start with a cup of coffee.

Two creams and two sugars.

And my computers web browser.

I like to wake up by reading in my favorite website haunts – like Ian Aspin's ReallyGoodThinking and Pat Caputo's Open Book Sports Blog. Both are very talented content providers – sharing their expertise with me freely.

I get my updates on my friends on facebook. I see what the people I find interesting on twitter have to say.

And then I jump to the local papers headlines to see what's happening around town.

Funny, because the local paper is usually sitting on my front porch as I log into the online version.

Then I jump into Pat Caputo's blog to see what he is talking about.

I check my emails and see if I have any comments on my head stuffing blogs.

Then I grab another coffee and I get ready for my day.

This morning ritual of checking my computer for what's new in the world hasn't really changed much over the last decade – except perhaps for what I'm reading.

It used to be that I checked my emails, and any news I subscribed to.

It used to take about tem minutes. Then I'd go get the paper and another cup of coffee.

Now it takes about three quarters of an hour. My coffee far from warm when I'm done.

Now before I get to work, I have a fair idea of how my friends are. What the trend of the day is – and perhaps even gain a little inspiration to start the day with.

Times are changing.

Over the last week, I have noticed that I actually just grab my iPhone to do all this. But it's just not as comfortable reading from that tiny screen yet. Convenient yes, but comfortable? No.

If you're reading this, most likely your way of getting up to speed with your own version of the daily planet happenings is very similar to mine. Perhaps the when and where is the only difference.

The shift has begun. For some this ritual is brand new.

The decade before this one found me sitting on the living room couch with my cup of coffee, getting my news from the television morning news, the paper open on the couch beside me.

The morning news is still on the television – available for me to check. And the paper still comes to the house – mostly for the ad flyers my wife needs to plan our weekly budgeted purchases.

My television now has some thousand channels available to be watched – news stations designed by program directors to feed me what I need to know by my interest in business, finance, or political perspective. But I don't use that. I get the news I am interested in online – and in the order I want to absorb it.

In fact now, before I even hit the shower, before I even lay the cereal bowls out for the girls to get their morning started – I know that an old buddy in Atlanta is participating in a fishing derby on Lake Lanier, and that another friend in Miami is off to do a photo-shoot in some beautiful location in Miami, and yet another friend just took off in a plane to another destination for work, or vacation.

That's worthy news – to me.

They may include photos –or a video – to let me share the experience.

I can't get that from the television's morning news show.

The television wants to tell me about what's happening with people I don't know. Paris Hilton's dog, or Brittany Spears boyfriend, or who from American Idol is favored to win. Somebody must be interested in that stuff – but that somebody isn't me.

I do still find great value in Sports Center on the sport network. I'm interested in that. But I can get more information in the time of my morning coffee consumption by checking for specific Detroit Tigers bloggers and stats sites.

I guess the shift I am talking about – as I see it anyway – is in how I can streamline my approach to getting up to speed.

But the downside is that sometimes I miss out on interesting items that occur outside peripheral vision of my little pinholes of interest.

You can't find out about things you don't know about by simply typing "What's interesting to me?" into a Google search box.

There are some out there that complain that we are passing by the services of the truly talented in the world by approaching this new media in the way that I am describing. That we are not reading the best news content – or not reading the best authors – or not being entertained by the best entertainers.

Their argument is that this new media allows mediocre content to take away the audience away from the truly talented content producers.

As I see it, if your truly talented – people will find you – on whatever media you are deploying your service – and they will show their appreciation to you by loyally returning for more of whatever it is that you are dishing out. Until what you dish out no longer is interesting.

Then they are off to the next interesting person.

Just like the holder of the television's remote control.

There are no more the medias controlled only by the big three networks – giving you only what they feel will get the biggest viewing audience – fitting their programming to best match the median interests of their audience.

However …

That being said, one could look at facebook and twitter as the biggest of the two new media networks – and you are trapped only seeing information on these sites in the means they have determined the common median of their audience wants to see it.

Perhaps the shift is simply that the pendulum is swinging back to the middle – with Facebook and Twitter taking the place of the major television networks?

You only get a person's recent status – on twitter limited to one hundred and forty characters or less. On facebook you have to filter out the constant updates as to how your friends are doing playing the facebook games like Mafia Wars or whatever.

Whatever?

Maybe the big shift is just back to whatever best pleases the median interests of the public?

But in a much more specific way? Only from who you want to hear from.

Sometimes change seems to occur to make things more like they used to be.

Could it be? The Detroit Tigers Are Six Games Up?

Could it be?

I seem to have to keep looking at my newspaper this morning.

The sports section. The Major League Baseball standings tucked in the top left corner of the second page of the sports section.

There, in black and white – with the authority of an official news organization behind – sits the standings of the American League Central.

My beloved Detroit Tigers are leading the American League Central division by six games.

Holy mackerel!

I have watched every game on television or listened to every game on the radio. So I don't know why I am in such a state of disbelief. Joyous disbelief, but disbelief all the same.

Pat Caputo is on the radio again this morning urging people to finally believe in this team. With a team leading their division by six with twenty seven left to play. The magic number now set to twenty two games – combinations of Tigers Wins – or losses of Minnesota and Chicago. Pat can't understand why Tiger fans have been hesitant to believe the Tigers will win the American League Central pennant and have a spot in the 2009 playoffs.

Well, to start with, the Tigers were supposed to be a poor team this year – chosen by the pundits of national sports to finish near the bottom of the division. But we Tiger fans knew the boys wearing the old English D were not as bad as they appeared to be last year – when they did finish in the basement after being picked by those same national media pundits to win the World Series.

We knew our starting pitching rotation would not stink this year like they did last year. We knew guys like Polanco, Inge, Guillen, and Thames would step up to fill the shoes of game-by-game heros when our superstars like Cabrera, Ordonez, Granderson, and Verlander faltered. And we knew that the Tigers farm system was deep enough to supply great temporary support by sending up newcomers like Raburn, Thomas, and Avila would step into roles and play significant parts – before we even knew their names.

But the problem was the Tigers couldn't win on the road.

Their road record was atrocious until the last two away game series. They hadn't won a road series since May, until taking the Angels in Anaheim last week and know their current series with the Tampa Bay Rays this weekend. The final game of that series about to start in a few minutes.

But while the Tigers played poorly on the road, the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox played worse.

Nobody beats Tampa Bay at Tropicana field.

But the Tigers have. And came from behind to do so.

The bats that were quiet are now awake.

The players that were slumping in clutch situations are now getting key hits. The pitching – when failing – has received enough run support to surpass the opposition. The defense has been tighter – and the Tigers Catchers – Laird and Avila – have been surpising in their ability to handcuff base runners by throwing laser accurate ropes to second – to the perfect spots where the runners slide into waiting gloves of Polanco, Everette, and Santiago.

A new confidence has arisen from the Tigers when they sit in the visiting dugouts.

If they score first they taunt the opposition to catch them if they can. If they fall behind in the course of a game, they charge back with determination and conviction to take the lead in the eighth or ninth innings.

And Tigers closer Fernando Rodney gives you tingles of fear comparable to a bungee jump made at a county fair – walking men or giving up hits to allow the tying run coming to the plate – only to get the poor bastard to swing at strike three and get out of the self-imposed jam. Rodney has scared us to death with every save opportunity appearance – but the statics show that in thirty something such opportunities – he has only let one slip through his split fingers.

But I am superstitious when it comes to baseball. I believe in jinxes.

And so that is why I still hesitate to declare decisively as Pat Caputo insists – that the Tigers will win the AL Central division.

Six game leads seem like a lot. Especially in September.

But there is a very scary road trip coming up – to visit both Minnesota and Chicago – at fields they don't typically do well in … so I reserve my right to hedge my complete and utter faith in the Tigers winning the pennant. Six games can dwindle quickly – especially if Minnesota and Chicago get hot too.

So I am still nervous. That's what makes a true pennant race like this one so exciting. I am hopeful – and trying desperately to be faithful. But I don't yet know for sure where things will sit when the fat lady sings in the first week of October.

I do know this. I will be at that final regular season game in October – against the White Sox. And whether it is a game of formality to simply cheer the Tigers into the post season – or whether it comes down to that final game to win our way into the post season – I don't know.

But it will be a great day that day.

Perhaps I will venture up to the press box to track down Caputo – and shake his hand – and share with him how truly great this season has been – pretending to be a pizza delivery guy – or a writer for the Schwartzville Times – Gazette – and simply point a thumbs up at him as he keys in his thoughts on the season.

Who knows.

But it has been a terrific ride that I hope continues strong for another twenty seven game days.

And I can honestly state that I am now a true believer – with only the fear that I am jinxing my beloved Detroit Tigers.

Could it be?

Yes it could.

Thank You Bill Huseby

I came home from work Thursday, and like most summer evenings, I grabbed my laptop and my radio and settled down to checking out the baseball stats for the evening. And while I do so, I flipped on the radio to listen to my favorite Detroit sports talk host and columnist – Pat Caputo.

Caputo – or "The Book" as he is better known inspired me to start this blog. I read his daily and comment on it almost every time he puts a new post up. And I think we have kind of become buds of sorts. I do know I would love to have a beer with the guy if the opportunity ever presented itself. A link to Pat's blog is on the left column as "Open Book".

Thursday, Brandon Inge – third basemen for my beloved Tigers – was voted on to the roster of the 2009 All Star team. He was voted in by "the final vote" – screwy system where fans can vote online as many times as they want for the player they want to get in. I had spent the last four evenings at home – tied to the laptop – plugging in votes for Inge. I must have voted a kajillion times.

I figure Inge owes me big time.

So I was happy for Inge. He is one of my favorite players – if not my favorite player – on the Tigers.

And I am not alone. Even though Inge career average is .238, he is a spectacular third baseman. But This year – Inge is hitting in the .280s.

Now this drives The Book nuts. He sees Inge as a mediocre player that fans like me put on a pedestal for no reason. Last year, when the Tigers pitching was so awful, he sarcastically said "hey .. maybe Inge can pitch, and son-of-gun his phone lines lit up with callers thinking the Third basemen who was then catching – could also pitch.

So on this great evening, The Book had started his show congratulating Inge – but before he took a breath he went on to say that by the end of the season, Inges average would be down to .242. I took exception to the back handed compliment and typed a text message in and sent it to the show – basically saying that it wasn't right to degrade a Tiger on the night he gets voted to the all star team.

Then, as I sat to listen to the radio to see if The Book would respond to my text – I checked my email.

That's when I read the email from Robb Irby – Bill Huseby had passed away after a battle with cancer.

Bill had lived two doors over from us when I was a kid living in Lawrenceville, Georgia. His name is kind of sprinkled through various posts on Head Stuffing when I remember my teen age years living on Plantation Court.

In my book, Bill was one of the coolest guys I ever knew. Sorry to use the word cool, but it meant something when I was a kid. And I valued Bill's opinion very much.

I jumped over to Facebook on my laptop – to see what my old Berkmar high school friends from the Class of 1980 were saying. Bruce Thompson had a post stating that we should appreciate our time while we were here, and Tommy Wester posted another tribute to Bill, announcing his passing and honoring him. And the list of classmates adding to the tribute were growing.

I wanted to post something to, but I had only known Bill for the five years we lived in Georgia. The last time I saw anybody there was 1980.

Then I heard the Book on the radio behind me

".. and I have a text message from Fred Brill in Windsor … "he started .. The Books temper starting to flare .. and he read my text in a sarcastically loud way ..

But I was thinking about Bill.

"Fred … Fred! C'mon now Fred ….", finished The Book, and he went to commercial. My favorite sports writer had just yelled at me so the whole town of Detroit could hear. But I didn't care. "Bill wouldn't have cared", I thought. "Bill would have thought it was funny", and I started to laugh to myself as I pictured the Bill I remembered from my youth.

So I started to write my comment into Tommy's tribute for Bill. I don't remember what I wrote – but I remember it was from the heart. I remember stating that Bill and the rest of the guys from the neighborhood were a part of me and were a big part of who I am today.

They are.

And then I sat back and remembered Bill.

I remembered playing football in Bill's back yard shortly after moving to Georgia from Minnesota and trying to fit in. And Bill and the guys welcomed me easily. And how much I appreciated that.

Bill was a leader in that group. And some of the Leadership traits that I have today I adopted from Bill, like how to diffuse a bad situation with humor. And how not to be scared of anybody – even another kids Mom or Dad.

Bill stood up for himself.

I remembered Bill on his Yamaha motorcycle – riding through the woods across the street. Popping wheelies – making jumps – and making it all look easy. And I remembered seeing a picture on Classmates.com Bill had posted of him and his son riding – Bill in what looked like the same riding suit – and you knew it was Bill because it was that same posture – the same silhouette of the guy. That was Bill alright.

I remembered playing pick up basketball in the Livesay's driveway. Bill was the first of us to get a summer and after school job at a car dealership on Peachtree Boulevard.

The other guys in that group were Robby Irby, Mike and Ronnie Lafever, Ken and Chris Stillwell, and John Bartles. The girls in the neighborhood were very pretty – very nice,and just as important and close in our group. Girls like Donna and Debbie Rice, Debbie Smith, Tracy Tomblin, Amy Livesay and Shelly Guyton.

I remembered one day my Dad took a whole bunch of us to a ball diamond he found buried way back in isolated spot – and he got us playing ball. Each of these guys played little league – and some on the high school team. My Dad could always find something to teach a kid about baseball – but when Bill went to the plate – Dad just sat and watched – Bill didn't need any help. He had it right,

When I left to go to University, I fell into another real good bunch of guys. And I fit in really well with those guys. But only because Bill and the guys from Plantation Woods taught me how to be a guy.

Later on that night I sent a twitter message to the Book – in an attempt to make peace with him – about a quote from the movie Bull Durham about the difference between hitting .250 and .300. I thought it an appropriate and humorous attempt to explain Inge's batting average:

"You know what the difference is between hitting .250 and hitting .300? I got it figured out."

"Twenty-five hits a year in 500 at bats is 50 points. Okay? There's six months in a season, that's about twenty five weeks--you get one extra flare a week--just one--a gork, a ground ball with eyes, a dying quail-- just one more dying quail a week and you're in Yankee Stadium!"

The Book tweeted me back to let me know he read my text on the air – and that he agreed the quote was appropriate. I knew it was ok because he used "LMBFAO" in the tweet.

And maybe it's appropriate in life too.

Because being friends with Bill Huseby and the guys from Plantation Woods was a lucky break for me – a break that changed me.

My groundball with eyes.

Twenty nine years later – I still remember that break. And I still appreciate Bill's and the rest of the guys generosity to let me be one of them – even if only for five years.

Rest in peace Bill. And thank you.

Mr. Grizzard and Mr. Caputo

As June arrives in Windsor in muggy summer fashion, I sit in my backyard listening to the Tigers game from Arlington, Texas. Tonight we are up 5 - nothing in the top of the fifth.

I'm tapping this into my little PDA. I hope this works.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you I am a sports freak. I love my baseball, my golf, hockey, and basketball. If the Lions didn't stink so bad, I might go back to loving football too.

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I actually think I know what I am talking about.

I am right more often than not. That puts me somewhere between 51% and 99% accurate. I can live with those margins.

When I was in university in Georgia, I used to read a sports columnist in the Atlanta Journal Constitution named Lewis Grizzard.

Although he was a sports columnist, he was more of a general humorist. I would buy the whole paper just to read his column. I loved the guy so much that I switched my major to be a journalism major and a poli-sci minor.

Why political science?

It seemed to me that joking about politicians would be funnier than sports. Perhaps - but sports are much more "real". And politicians are too easy to make fun of.

Mr. Grizzard died some time ago. Some would say his lifestyle kIlled him.

I write this blog in the memory of Mr. Grizzard.

I even try to emulate his style.

In Detroit, the best sports columnist is Pat Caputo. He writes for the Oakland Press and has a radio show -The Book on Sports - on 1270 AM.

I have a link to his blog site 'Open Book' on the left sidebar. I post comments quite often to his blog - pretending to be a knowledgeable sports fan, and Pat is very generous in his replies.

In one post, I was actually referred to as one of the great Canadians. Unfortunately he was kidding.

But I am enjoying this blog very much. To all who have been reading, thank you. I will try to do a better and more consistent job.

Below is a Lewis Grizzard Column from the Spring of 1992 - after his beloved Atlanta Braves lost the 1991 World Series to the Minnesota Twins. This is pure Grizzard:

The Boys Of Summer Go Under The Dome Lewis Grizzard Baseball season came to a rather rotten end for me in 1991. There I was in Minneapolis's house of horrors, the Metrodome, covering the seventh game of the World Series between Atlanta's Braves (with apologies to the Portland Oregonian) and the Minnesota Twins, a nickname a clever person said was insensitive to couples who couldn't have children. Around the fifth inning, with no score in the game, the ribbon on my typewriter, which was manufactured sometime around the turn of the century, suddenly wouldn't advance. I couldn't make letters and words appear on the white paper in front of me. I fiddled with the problem for six more outs and was nearing a panic stage. What if I couldn't figure out a way to free the ribbon? The game would end and I would have to write my column longhand and I hadn't written anything in longhand since my last essay-type test in college. And who could I get to help me with the ribbon? Everybody else in the press box was writing on a Star Wars computer. Who would remember about typewriter ribbons? By the grace of God, I finally hit the right lever inside my typewriter and the ribbon started moving again. Then the Braves lost 1-0 because Lonnie Smith went brain dead on the base path. I finished my column and left the Metrodome. Outside, Twins fans were celebrating by doing such things as climbing onto the tops of buses. I had hired a car and driver to take me back to my hotel. Some kids had asked my driver for whom he was waiting. "Some guy from Atlanta," he told them. When I arrived at the car the kids began heckling me. "We beat your [bad word]!" one screamed. "Go home, you redneck!" screamed another. Once I was inside the car and had locked my doors, they banged on the windows and roof and one of the Norse waifs pressed his nose and mouth on one of the windows. As I recall the incident now, I think he looked a little like Paul Tsongas. When I finally reached my hotel, shaken but unscathed, the bar was closed. I made a mental note that Minnesota calling itself the gopher state was an insult to gophers, and went to sleep. It is difficult for me to believe the 1992 baseball season is upon us so quickly. Wasn't the nightmare in Minneapolis just yesterday? Indeed not. The 1992 Atlanta Braves, defending National League champions, are about to open their season, and many questions arise. I will attempt to answer some of them: Can the Braves repeat as National League champions? Sure. You really think so? If you really must know, I'm extremely concerned about Cincinnati. What can we expect of David Justice this season? A lot of pouting when things don't go his way. Does the team have a drug problem? Well, they were drug all over the field during spring training but you can't really go by that. Will the chop come back? Was Custer surprised at little Big Horn? Will Jane and Ted have a successful marriage? Who do I look like, Dear Abby? Let's stick to baseball. What part of the Braves do you think will be the most improved? Their bank accounts. What would you like to see out of Lonnie Smith this season? An apology. If the Braves get to the World Series and have to play the Twins again, would you go back to Minneapolis? If I can take along a typewriter technician, and my own bat. http://www.lewisgrizzard.com/