Ian Barber

Michigan State ‘22 | Go Tigers

[Detroit Lions @Lions]

Hey, we know that guy

[Robert Caputo @robert28962]

STATEMENT FROM THE FAMILY

For more than forty years, Detroit's sports fans had Pat's full attention. In the months since his diagnosis, we have had it — 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.

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.

We are all so proud of Pat and all his accomplishments. While he's leaving a void in our lives and in the community that he so proudly represented, he's made his mark and his legacy lives on. To his audience he was known as "The Book," but to us he was a cherished member of our family.

We love you, Pat.

— The Caputo Family

———

A TRIBUTE TO A DETROIT LEGEND

"I haven't said much publicly since January because I haven't known what to say," he told us.

So we'll start where he started.

"When I came out of college I had nothing on my resume. I couldn't type. In journalism class I never wrote anything anyone would want to read." The only useful thing he had, he said, was an idea he'd picked up from a textbook somewhere — that "nobody wanted to be a state capital correspondent, so the lane was wide open if you'd take it." That became the only theory he ever had about this business: "Take the job nobody else wants. Out-work them on the part nobody else cares about." 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't last long. The boss called him in one day, he remembered, and explained, kindly, that "I was just horrible."

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'd raise his hand for any game nobody else wanted to cover. "Hey, can I do this one? Can I do that one?" 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.

He still couldn't type. Tom Kowalski — who half of his audience grew up listening to and the other half grew up reading — 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: "This guy has got some coordination problems." Pat, telling the story, said Kowalski wasn't wrong.

After nine months they hired him full-time to cover high schools. "I was twenty-four years old, and if you'd told me then that I'd get to cover sports and live in my one-bedroom apartment for the rest of my life, I would have been happy." He never had a grand plan that he would have such an amazing career. He had a fear, which is different. "I was scared every day that I was going to lose the job," he said, "so I worked it like I was going to lose it tomorrow."

The writing didn't come easy either. People sometimes asked him how he got better at it, and the only honest answer, he said, was "a miracle." He wrote a lot. He asked people he respected to tell him what was wrong with what he'd written, and then he listened to the answers — the part, he noted, that many young writers skip. The awards came later. They were nice. They didn't change anything he knew about himself.

His dad used to tell him and his brothers, "Never quit. Just keep coming." He didn't 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't 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. "I'd like to think I always did my very best," he told us. "And if I get to leave you with anything, let it be that. Whatever it is you're up to tomorrow, do your very best at it. My very best wasn't necessarily anybody else's best. But it was mine, and I gave it."

There were things he never imagined as a kid from Michigan he'd ever get to see. "I 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," 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't 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' 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.

He told us about one of the coolest moments of his career — October of '06, in the press box at Comerica Park, watching Magglio Ordoñez 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, "boy, they were really proud."

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 — out loud, every day, on the air, with anybody who picked up the phone.

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 — every one of them, he said, made him better. "I owe all of these people something I don't know how to pay back."

The job — the actual job, the going-to-the-ballpark, going-to-the-press-box, sitting-at-the-microphone part of it — 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'd 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.

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 "I am blessed."

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's 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. "I just got lucky," he said. "I always have been."

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.

———

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

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 — sports. They were at the core of every conversation.

Growing up, we played trivia games — quizzing each other on prospects' 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' first-round draft picks from the late '80s through last year. In true form, "The Book" got every single one right.

I'm going to miss those conversations so very much.

— Rob Caputo

———

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.
@971theticketxyt @bobwojnowski @stoney16 @MitchAlbom @berniesmilovitz @tigers @Lions @DetroitPistons @RedWingsFeed @MSU_Athletics @MSU_Football @MSU_Basketball @FOX2News @KenKalDRW @TheOaklandPress @dennisfithian @DanMillerFox2 @freep @detroitnews @matthewbmowery @TonyPaul1984

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@MudHens @FrancoisCorpel

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@TigerTerritory_ @CodyStavenhagen @Kieran_Steckley Obviously in season he isn’t going to be asked to hit against righties very often, so I guess the question is moreso do you see people facing opposite sided pitchers of their normal platoon in spring a disadvantage in their preparation for the season?

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@TigerTerritory_ @CodyStavenhagen @Kieran_Steckley Thoughts on how players usage in the spring differs from in season? Obviously we see a lot of positional movement/exploration in the spring, but one thing I noticed today was Jahmai Jones getting a lot of reps against righties.

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

Heart is full

[Chris McCosky @cmccosky]

Good to talk to Miguel Cabrera today. He’s fired up about coaching Tean Venezuela hitters with Victor Martinez. He jokingly said he tried to recruit Josue Briceno and Eduardo Valencia to the team.

[Detroit Tigers @tigers]

Greetings from TigerTown 🐅

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@FrancoisCorpel I’m glad you are still here bro and hope you know I am always, always here for you if you need someone to talk to

[Detroit Tigers @tigers]

Detroit No Matter What

[Connor Stalions @cpstalions]

Mike Macdonald’s team.
Jay Harbaugh’s Special Teams.
Chris Partridge’s D Ends.
AJ Barner’s Touchdown.

[Big Ten Conference @bigten]

Just because we feel like it this morning 😊

[Dov Kleiman @NFL_DovKleiman]

Insane: The Colts ran a fake punt on 4th down and they converted...

The next play, on 1st & 10, they left the punt team on the field and ran a fake punt again.

Texans players had no clue what was happening.

😭😭😭

[Saturday Down South @SatDownSouth]

Ok, time to get something off our chest:

If your boss has a UGA mug, she should at least *understand* getting barked at.

Are there UGA fans who have barked at 0 people ever?

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

Hypothetically, Vanderbilt would have beat 8-4 Iowa, SEC is soooo deep, they win all the hypothetical matchups

In reality though, Vandy played a bunch of cupcakes in the SEC and had an inflated 10-2 record, Iowa had to play in the much tougher B1G and has quality losses

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

SEC is so good tho, hypothetically Tennessee would have won this game

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

SEC is so good tho, hypothetically Tennessee would have won this game

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@FrancoisCorpel @detroitkait @clay_snowden2 @TigersJUK @d1ng3rs @vialsofdenial @rebeccalee155 @tradeincoming @jFudgy_ @MotownMels @WENCEELISM Never a better person to go see a ballgame with

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@TheGloveSports Knee was down a yard short

[Bud Elliott @BudElliott3]

BREAKING: Alabama Director revealed that starting in 2026 Alabama is automatically in the 12-team playoff if the Tide finish ranked in the top-20

[Ian Barber @coachcookie45]

@CodyStavenhagen Will this replace the exhibition against Panama originally scheduled on the 4th in Lakeland?