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”.

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/

You Just Can’t Say That Anymore

I was reading a book this morning.

In this electronic age of the internet, book reading is becoming a lost past time, unless you are my wife – drilling through volumes of romantic novel drivel in a single afternoon.

I was reading a collection of writings by my all time favorite writer - Lewis Grizzard. Lewis was the sports editor and weekly columnist for the Atlanta Journal. In University I would buy the paper every Thursday only to read Mr. Grizzards column.

It struck me this morning, as I read one of his stories, that I envied him for his free and easy way of describing a person, condition, or situation. There were no holds barred. He could call things as he saw them.

In one particular passage, he is describing his honeymoon night with his beautiful new second wife. They had travelled four hours by car to Savannah Georgia after being married that afternoon by a Texaco gas station attendant that his brother Ludlow had hired to pretend to be a minister.

Once at the train station, the newlyweds are told they had no reservations for a sleeper car on the Amtrack to Orlando, Florida. And in typical Grizzard fashion, Lewis informs the frail elderly train attendant that unless a correction was made, he would "come behind the glass, and punch you and hit you, and pull off your raccoon hair toupee and tell everyone that you are a bedwetting communist homosexual …".

And … well ... you just can't say that kind of thing anymore.

If you did, the National Organization of Bedwetting Communists would complain about being called homosexuals.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. No, not at all. Some of my best friends …

But in this electronic age of posting immediate news and celebrity humiliation video, it ironically goes against the grain to call anything as you really see it.

Now at some point in our lives, we have all had the occasion where we have woken up on a soggy mattress and maybe even had our sheets hung out to dry for all to see. And it is not unheard of to have considered the position of Karl Marx and wondered if it weren't for the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that in some conditions communism might actually be a feasible means of governing.

And that would just plain upset the homosexuals. Not to mention the political right.

But we are not allowed to talk about such things now.

Nobody likes to be offended. Not the bedwetters. Not the communists. And certainly not the homosexuals.

And far be it from me to ever cross any of those lines.

Some of my best friends were bedwetters, and others I know are actually former communists. And for all the homosexuals I have known, there have only been a few I didn't like, and the reason was not their choice of alternative lifestyles.

They were just not very nice.

It's probably a blessing to Mr. Grizzard that he passed before seeing the content of the internet be so controversial, yet the language that we use be so dumbed down as to be sure we don't offend.

But I do not have the luxury of writing in a time of such a more simpler age.

So I make my solemn promise to you all that I will do my best to not offend anyone by the postings on my blog. And I will do my part to stand up for the rights of all readers.

Even bedwetting communist homosexuals.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Lewis Grizzard – former columnist and sports editor of the Atlanta Journal.

Why I Write - Revisited

As time goes by, our goals and objectives are bound to evolve.

Mine certainly have.

I still long to strive to reach my potential as an IT professional. That goal remains unchanged. And I'm not done yet. My commitment is strong.

In fact, tomorrow I have my performance review first thing in the morning. So I have spent the evening with the standard form – answering the questions to the best of my ability – unbiased but still intentionally putting my best foot forward.

That's how it works, right?

But as I reached the exercise of examining my goals and objectives, my mind started to wander.

And I went through some of my favorite headstuffing posts – and I started once again to reconsider my goals and objectives for headstuffing.

Back in April of 2008, I wrote a post called "Why I Write". I liked this post so much that I decided to put a link on the side bar under my profile – and use that as my statement to the world … my justification if you will … why headstuffing exists.

But that was almost two years ago.

And this performance review has me in mind of reflection.

So why do I write headstuffing now in 2010?

I still stand behind my original mission statement that I am writing these stories about our life for my daughters so "they can remember us as we are now, for as long as I keep writing these stories – as long as I keep documenting our life – and they will be use these stories to keep us alive in their hearts".

But there is more now.

No, not to make money off my Google Ads. I still have yet to see a penny from my Google Ads.

I have come to realize that I really enjoy writing stories that touch people. That inspire people. That make people laugh and cry.

And think.

If I can make you laugh and think at the same time, I have reached my objective with my story.

I'd just as soon you not cry. There is enough in the world to make a person cry. I don't want to add to it.

And my goal to strive for? To achieve should I consistently meet my writing objectives of touching you with laughter and thought?

Easy.

I want to do this for a living … my retirement profession.

After I am done with the IT profession, or after the IT profession is done with me.

I want to write stories like the sideline columns my favorite author and hero Lewis Grizzard used to write.

People used to pay for the whole Atlanta Constitution just to read Lewis Grizzard's column – running down the left side of an inside page in the front section – about an inch wide the length of the page. And then leave the paper for the next person to pick up – likely only to read Grizzard's column as well.

A grandiose goal to be sure.

But we gotta dream. And why not make a goal out of dream.

But I don't charge for headstuffing. It's just a blog.

And take it from me, if you go telling people that you write a blog, the eyes roll back in their head, and you can see your credibility fall from right off the edge of the world by the smirk of the smile on their face.

But to me, headstuffing isn't a blog.

It's a collection of stories. My stories.

My heart.

My soul.

I consider headstuffing being referred to as a blog is an insult. Even though you and I both know that a web site with posts archived like this is really just … choke … a blog.

But I want these stories to be read. I hope that these stories are enjoyed. And I desperately want the writing that goes into these stories to be respected.

Would it be great to make a living off these stories? Of course it would be.

But for right now, this is the venue that I have to share with you.

And I do love headstuffing. It is my passion.

Silly eh?

Perhaps.

But it's also my legacy – for my little girls to really know their Daddy and remember our family by.

And it's my only way to share with the world what I have to offer.

All I have to offer.

Google Ads? I still don't need no stinking Google Ads!

But I do love your comments. And I do love your feedback.

So since I'm sharing with you, why not share a bit back with me by sharing your opinion by leaving a comment.

And your still welcome to click a Google Ad or two while you're here.

Little Fish In A Big Pond

Indeed the world has gotten much smaller in the last twenty years.

So small that good friends around the world almost seem local to us.

Tools like Facebook and Twitter bring us the status and relevant thoughts of their lives in short snippets of text. In Twitter the limit is one hundred hand forty characters. Facebook provides a bit more.

And tools like Skype let us call and talk and see each other while we do.

Global events like the World Cup soccer tournament can now be analyzed and debated – scrutinized in real-time as the match is being played – with the world – amongst the noise of the cheering fans typing in their cheers and jeers as well.

The internet has changed the world drastically. So much that the name Internet no longer really represents this global connectedness.

The opportunities this new connectedness (a phrase coined by the online gurus of this new connected world – first seen by me in tweets from great pundits like Ian Aspin Andrew Keen and Patrick Dixon) has opened up a world of opportunities.

Opportunities we are still trying to get our heads around.

For example, it has allowed for me to write here on headstuffing – and share my musings with the world (or at least my .006% of the Earth's population that I can reach) – in hopes of that someone of influence will trip over my stories and open new doors for myself and my family – to let me put headstuffing to work for my daughters education and to maybe add to the pittance of a retirement fund I am acquiring after twenty years of dedicated service to the various employer's throughout my career.

Sorry, I got on a bit of a tangent there.

But you see what I mean.

When I was a young man – first looking to get my foot in the door – my Uncle Fred once told me that if I offered my services for free – then the parties that benefit from those services would gladly pay you to do them once they realiuzed their value.

A debatable concept – which led me to poverty in my early twenties – until a friend – already successful in the field – suggested that I charge an exorbitant fee for my services – because that would create the illusion of value.

My friend was right. And together we made a pretty good little living together for a couple of years.

But neither of these concepts seems to work on the Internet … err … in this connectedness.

You can't charge people for what they get for free. And you can't charge exhorbitant amounts of money for something people can find online for free – by sources much more talented than yourself.

This connectedness has taken all the big fish in small ponds and thrown them into one great ocean. And the whales and the sharks in this ocean simply overshadow – and sometimes eat – the once big fish in small ponds.

Newspapers are the shining example of this – once great fish – in their local ponds – overshadowed by online news services - extinguishing their readership and subscription revenues as people find that bundled little gem of local news on their doorstep to be of less and less value. Overshadowed like the tiny elm that can't get nourishing sunlight because that damned gigantic maple tree next to it has left it permanently in the shade.

Would you pay your local newspaper as much as you do for a subscription – merely to see the local high school sports scores?

Maybe in the case of the Atlanta Journal of old – and that was the only place you could get the latest Lewis Grizzard column. But in those days, Mr. Grizzard's writings became valuable enough a service that he became a syndicated columnists printed in thousands of papers across the United States.

In short – he jumped from the little pond to the big ocean of the connectedness available before the Internet.

So how do writers like myself and headstuffing – and others as or more talented than I – how do we find that next level?

Some would say the best source of revenue from a blog (and I hate that term so desperately) is to put tiny little advertisements all around it. Monetize it.

I did. Not a single Google Ad cent over the last four years since I started. Not a single nickel from Amazon for touting their books on my pages.

Of course I didn't go chasing those nickel and dime clicks very hard.

But advertising someone else's wares to earn money when you want your writings to be respected seems to me to be a bit – hypocritical? No that's not the right word.

Misdirected.

"But it's your writing that will draw people to the ads … the ad money directly correlates to your popularity as a writer".

No it doesn't.

I don't buy into this concept that people are so prone to impulse buying that they will click a link off of my site to go purchase a hat or a sweatshirt or the latest paperback novel.

Not unless they could only get that merchandise from headstuffing. A headstuffing hat or t-shirt or sweatshirt – a collection of headstuffing stories in a book form.

Do I want to be a merchandiser? They say the big Hollywood movies make more money on merchandising than they do on the movie – some times. It depends on the movie.

I doubt seriously there was tons of merchandising opportunities for Brokeback Mountain.

I guess in short – I am simply wanting for what those of us who call ourselves writers want … to be called writers by other people.

That respect goes a long way. And opens even more doors.
Some of the great writers have earned tremendous fortunes from their writings. Because their writings became books. And their books became movies. And their movies often became merchandise.

Damn, there's that merchandise avenue again.

But it's such a big ocean. The little ponds are all gone.

And I'm wondering if I am a good enough swimmer.