* Pat Caputo, 97.1 The Ticket (Detroit)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack Ebling here with my good friend Matt Sloan. A
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They're making friends.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Welcome back.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
It is a drive with Jack the Spotlight Radio Network.
Jack Ebling here with my producer Boston Rob.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Rob.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
You know, yesterday a group of us went down to Coomerica.
I finally finally saw the Tigers win a game after
four losses this season, and then we did the show
on the way back. Five of us, Jim Keaton driving Bluebelly,
Tom was there, Fred Thompson, Jay Green. We had a
great time. I want to welcome in someone who is

(01:10):
an authority on the Detroit Tigers and if you've heard
him on the postgame shows, if you have read his things.
At ninety seven to one at the ticket dot com,
Pakaputo joins us, Pat, how are you.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm doing well? What's up? Jack? Good to hear you
had a full car and we're doing your shown So yeah,
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
What I said. That was the clown car.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
But there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Less. We had a good time down there, a lot
better time than fram Burvell does did well.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, that was kind of strange because I've never seen
Framburvel does ever, like really really struggle in the start.
And that was just incredible and just incredible series. The
Astros on the opposite end of the scale and the
Tigers at the off their game. It was amazing to see.

(02:03):
I don't you know, I was really surprised, I'd have
to say the least the way that series winning.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Maybe it's just baseball, Pat, but we saw the Tigers
drop eleven out of twelve and have the best record
in the American League, and we saw the Astros not
score for thirty and two thirds innings. How does that happen?

Speaker 3 (02:26):
I don't know, you know, the game has serious zibs
and flows actually was twelve out of thirteen, the Tigers lost, Yeah,
and then you know, since then they've been playing great.
All the angst about the trade deadline. You know, Charlie
Morton's been really good, Finnigan's been lights out. You know,

(02:46):
Paddock has the least had two decent starts out of four,
and you know, you throw in Rafael Montero doing okay. Sometimes.
You know, there's not a lot of anngst about the
trade deadline because all the Tigers don't since then has
win right exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
So, I think we talked when Cleveland was making a
run and you said that that was a team that
you couldn't kill him. I just kept lingering around, and
now it looks like maybe they've realized that they're not
supposed to be in this. They're ten and a half
out and behind the Royals by half game. Who do
you think finish the second in the Al Central.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
I'll go with the Royals because they added Y Scrimsky
and he's helped them. They lost a tough one yesterday.
They've got, you know, a bit of a chance here
against the Tigers. They're playing them head to head sooner
than Cleveland will I don't know, but you know it's
always hard for me to for the reasons I said
before to go, well, how many times have we counted
Cleveland out? Yeah? There was an old movie. It was

(03:51):
Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. I forget the name of
the movie, which he kept. Yeah, fatal Attraction with the knife,
you know, And you know that's way Cleveland is. You know,
I call them a bad fungus, you know, the stalkers,
you know, but I don't know. You know, the Brave
Braves had the answer for them. Of all teams, you

(04:12):
know that corpse, that's the Atlanta Braves. So yeah, that
surprised me. You know, that's you know, but Jack ain't
about baseball, And all sports are like this. All sports
are like this, but baseball in particular. It's a long season.
There's a lot of different games, and there's so many
ebbs and flows, and you know, who knows. The Tigers

(04:34):
play the Royals this weekend, the Royals win three games,
and then next thing, you know, we've got panic mode again.
So yeah, I thinking happen because Kansas City's got good pitching.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
What do you think chances are pat that this team
could roll to stunning win total if they go twenty
and thirteen in the last thirty three games, they'll be
a ninety six and six. Let's say they win ninety
six or ninety seven games and have the best record
in the American League. It's still possible that they could

(05:09):
sit out the wildcard round, come back and get beat
in an Alds series, and then you've got the Detroit
Lions all over again.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well that's anything's possible like that. I mean, nobody in
Houston last year, you know, they thought that that team
had played a tremendous pace all, you know, after a
really poor start and they get into a series and lose.
So the Tigers are in any kind of series, it's
a five game series, you know they could lose. You know,

(05:39):
it's not like you know, there's no no predictability of it.
They can beat any team in the American League, we
know that. But any team that will be in the
postseason is capable of beating the Tigers. We know that.
So we will see how it actually goes. They're not
a dominant team. The big question I think is who's
going to be the number two star. Based on what

(06:01):
Flairty did the other day, certainly you would say him,
but the games he started this year, they're eight to seventy. Yeah,
is it my? Is it Morton? What would he be
throwing like at that point? Would it be melting because
he's you know, throwing so well, you know who's going
to be their number two? And do they have enough
in the bullpen? The trade deadline still will loom at

(06:26):
that point because if they can you imagine if they
had Finn again, Bednar and vest you know the way
they're set up now, it's one day you get that group,
all right, that's gonna be tough to beat. But what
about if he hit the other groups that they have
to throw out there? You know what I'm saying. So
you know, those are the factors that go in and hitting.

(06:47):
You know, the Tiger's got a good hitting club, but
hitting comes and goes on whimsical ways in baseball. You know,
how much are they going to be hitting at that time?
And they're going to be seeing better pitching? You so,
how are their hitters going to adjust that?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, I'm thinking that this team is going to win
the division by I said more than eight games, and
then it's it's a crap shoot. I mean, you go
up against Houston again and we know that Hunter Brown
and Trek Skoobel. I mean, they're both capable of throwing shutouts.

(07:25):
So you could lose that game. The same thing if
you want to against the Red Sox and and Garrett
Crochet was on the mound, you could could lose that game.
Play well and still lose it. So this is not
a free pass into the alcs we saw a year ago.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, you know what team I think is the
best suited for the playoffs in Sel because they're pitching
is so good. You know, you know, the big dumper,
you know, it just keeps dumping home runs. And you
got Julio Rodriguez has turned around his season, and you know,

(08:00):
you just you know, and you got a real good
bullpen there with Munio's at the end. Seattle, to me,
would be the most dangerous team they could play in
the postseason. Now, Boston, you brought up some good points
about them, but they got a few holes in their
lineup and pitching staff. None of these other teams are,
you know, as complete as Seattle. So I would say

(08:26):
that Seattle's probably the team that if I were, you know, like,
hey bad, you know, picking the postseason, and you know
I didn't take the Tigers into consideration, Like I'm in Detroit,
you know where people get mad, and I'll say this,
I think Seattle would be the team to be. Now,
they're not going to have maybe the home field advantages

(08:49):
or whatever, but I do like their chances based on
what we saw from Houston here of passing Houston and
winning the division and maybe getting on a bit of
a role here at the end of the year. You know,
Jo Suarez hasn't hit for them, but they've gotten some
production out of Naylor and.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
They had another home run yesterday. He's up to thirty nine,
so he's he's starting to get it, and I think
he will. But if you look at Erosa Rena Dumber
last year, Yeah, person, Yeah, You've got you got five
guys there at the top of the yeah, exactly. They
can be can be pretty scary. You talk about Kansas City.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
For pitching, They're pitching. Their they're starting pitching is better
than anybody else's.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yes, I think so, certainly deeper if you get down
to the four and five guys, it would definitely be that.
I was thinking about Bobby Witt junior pat and not
having the year he did last year. But it's still
a really solid year bat in two ninety four, and
he has a chance to make major league history. You
probably know this if anyone does, but he could be

(09:57):
the first player ever to have season with fifty doubles
and forty steals. No one has done that. And he
has doubles. Yeah, he's leading the majors with thirty nine
doubles and he has thirty two steals. So in his
final five plus weeks he can certainly get eleven doubles

(10:21):
an eight stolen bases.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, I can imagine that. I mean, you know, he's
a great player. He truly is. You know, he hasn't
played at an MVP level this year, but I can
imagine that he's one of the great young stars in
the game. He's one of the top ten players easily
in the game. So yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. I
wonder what he would do in a park where maybe

(10:45):
he's a little more homer friendly too, you.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Know, yes, yes, yeah, I had one other stats thing
here I thought was really interesting. Pat Josel Tub last
week became the twenty fifth member of the two hundred
and fifty two hundred and fifty club, So two hundred
and fifty homers and two hundred and fifty steals twenty
five guys.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Now I've done that.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
If he gets three hundred homers, so he needs fifty
more homers. And he's thirty five years old playing in
the bandbox. He's already got three hundred and twenty three steals,
I think, so he needs fifty more homers. He'd be
the ninth guy to be in the three hundred three
hundred club. And if he could steal like twenty seven
bases and the rest of his career might be able

(11:29):
to do that on double steals and then hit one
hundred more home runs and he's averaging a little better
than twenty a year, he would join Barry Bonds as
the only players in the three fifty three fifty club.
Willie Mays didn't make it. The guy who almost made it,
surprisingly was Bobby.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Bonds, right, well, not really, I mean he was five
to two guy.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't think of him as being
one of the greatest players in history, but altil wait.
To me, it looks like he's gonna be a syensh
Hall of Famer unless somebody wants to hold him responsible
for the sign.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Stealing well, I also think it's amazing you know that
he could do that. If you were running back at Michigan,
Mark Dantonio would have had a lot of fun with that.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
I couldn't He couldn't help my well, my heart shot,
you know, I love it.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Little card shot right there, you know. Or we could
talk about our friend. Earl could not only look to
mind eye could say hey, shorty. Uh, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
One other thing about Altov that I think is interesting.
I know if everybody else does. But uh, he is
second on the list for postseason home runs all time
with twenty seven. Right, he's two behind Manny Ramirez. And
now they're playing so many postseason games, pat he could
hit three this year.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah. You know you asked the question about Hall of Fame. Uh,
you don't have a Hall of Fame vote. I would
vote for jose L Twovan to me if he didn't
play another game as a Hall of Famer for an
answer to your question. In my opinion, he's one of
the great players of this generation, no question.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
All right, I want to switch gears here, and you
know you kind of brought up the University of Michigan.
But I had a couple of people send me a
piece you wrote. Uh you want to explain what you
think Michigan has done to its brand, its legacy through
all of this scandal.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Well, yeah, I mean I've always had, you know, the
utmost respect for me. Yeah, yeah, like deep respect. I
knew both Shimbcker. I think that's you know, pretty well
known from his time with the president of Tigers. I
think broke Boa Shimbacker is a great man. I knew

(13:56):
Gary Moeler very well from his time with the Lions
when I was a b are there. I had conversations
with these guys that were pretty deep. Uh, and uh,
Gary Moehler to me was a great man. And uh
Lloyd Carr I didn't know quite as well, and I
didn't know him really anything like that, but you know,
in the media scrum and I upset him a great

(14:17):
deal one time he gave me a stink guy for
like five minutes at a news conference. You know. Yeah,
I don't believe all had it. Uh you know, I
mean it was just so. But I really like Lloyd Carr,
really admire Lloyd Carr. I think of all the players
that I've known down through the years and done shows with,

(14:39):
actually look like.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
This there any of them are around right now or
they're not part of this group. Well they're you know,
they're hypocrites of the West.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
They are hypocrites of the West, you know. So, and
I know a lot of kids I played sports with
that went to Michigan played sports. I'm going to see
one on Friday that was a big ten MVP baseball player,
you know, a long time ago. So a friend of mine,
a good friend of mine from we put teammates in
high school and other teams. So to make a long

(15:11):
story short, I'm gonna get to the point. Michigan. You know,
they had a reputation for being above the fray. Now
they're arrogance and some of the other things and the
Michigan man and all stuff was annoying. But everybody admired this.
And now I've talked to enough coaches and I know
you have to that recruiting against Michigan was very difficult

(15:32):
because of that. It doesn't matter what sport, and Michigan
is a jewel, crown jewel to our state. But this,
you know, and the fact that they didn't get the
penalties and it didn't mean anything. They paid a severe
price for this. They've been hypocritical, beyond belief. They're so
insular it's unreal. They could care less about the outside world.

(15:55):
The amount of missteps by their athletic depart man since
twenty twenty one is stunning, and somehow he still gave
Manual the you know, athletic Director of the Year for
what you know, the lack.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Of his When football team wins a championship, that often
goes with it. But if you look at the history here,
Pat and you know, I've had people send me stuff
in the last month about what they did in cheating
in nineteen oh seven. I don't care about that. But
if you look at compared to other schools, they do
have the record. No other school has been put on

(16:32):
NCAA probation in football more than once, in basketball with
the largest monetary scandal in NCAA in fractions history, in
hockey and in baseball, So in all four sports they're
the only ones who has a probation Grand Slam.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Well, they weren't put out on probation for the SAB five,
were they. That was all self enforced and then they
didn't put them on.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
The NCAA came back and said, yes, uh, you know,
we accept these but they did enough to strip and
to do other things. But there wasn't NCAA.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
No, But yeah, no, I mean it was a torrible scandal.
Their basketball program is dirty for a number of years.
So probably go back to Dave Strack. How did all Kazi?
They were terrible in basketball for decades and all of
a sudden, Kazzie Russell shows up there with Bill Budden
and Oliver Darden and then it just went on and
on through Freeder. But you know, and then I know
he irritated Bo. But you know, I just have to

(17:32):
tell you, you know, just Jim Harbaugh specifically the biggest Jim Harbaugh.
You know, I really like Jim Harbaugh. I mean really
like him. You know, back to when he was a
Lions it was his last gasp, and I talked to
him at that training camp. I was a beat writer
that this guy's impressive. I's quirky, all this stuff, great coach,

(17:52):
and now I just you know, he totally just the
thought of him, you know, his hypocrites hypocrisy stunned me.
You're taking it back. All these wonderful Michigan people that
I've known, I still feel that way about them, But
you know, their Border Regents was you know, you know everybody,
you know, justifiably just all over the Michigan State's boarder

(18:15):
trustees for decades. But a clown show that is then.
But you know, the border regents there, these dignified people
turned their back to it. And their president that they
had at the time, Jack, that man wasn't a man.
That was actually a hologram of a smiling emoji. So
you know this is correct. Yeah, yeah, he's a smiling emoji,

(18:37):
that's what he was. So they had no enforcement. They
turned a blind eye to it. They were so frustrated
about not beating Ohio State, not beating Michigan State, never
went into Big Ten Championship, not going to the BCS
or CFP, that they would do anything to just claim
a natty, and that natty could not be more tainted

(18:59):
even if they book it away all right, because you know,
everybody outside of their insular circle, you know, is looking
at them like they're you know, look, the term leaders
and the best when when you hear that, Jack, what's
the first thing you meet and you can say it
to the Lantine people. Well, no, they were talking about Paduka, Kentucky.

(19:19):
Everybody's smirking at that and laughing at that. All right,
their reputation has been soiled in irrerep hurt you on
repair and then on top of it, and this was
the Yeah, that's it. That's that's the exactly, you know.
And the NCAA didn't do anything to them, you know,

(19:41):
And and you think about Connor Stallions, what produces that,
what produces that. Connor Stallions is the new Michigan man.
He's a Walmart Wolverine, he's a fan. Unbelievable, and they
actually hired the guy.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Show Cause is two years shorter them, Jim Harbaugh's show
Cause on top of another show Cause.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
But it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
He's off of that in twenty thirty eight. He's never
coming back. It's not going to be relevant, you know.
It was just something that they could say, well, you know,
we imposed a penalty, and a thirty million dollars fine
is going to be nothing for Michigan. They have a
nineteen point two billion dollar endowment. Their athletic budget is
two hundred and thirty point six million, and if they

(20:31):
had to write a thirty million dollar check, they've got
a list of people who could do.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
It so well, they don't have to write check either.
Read that they don't. They're just they're just taking away
the money from their postseason games so they don't have
to do that the NCAA. Did you know if the
NCAA is on its way out, and who knows what
the new enforcement people are going to be, But twenty
years ago they would have gotten, you know, loss of
a bunch of scholarships when that mattered, you know, been

(20:58):
taken off TV, you know, all they had postseason banned
for three years or something like that. They would have
got what use the USC got when Reggie Bush thing
came down. But you know, it's all irrelevant because you know,
everybody knows everything deep down. They know, okay, deep down
they know. All these sycophants, most of them who didn't

(21:20):
go to the school there, the Walmart Wolverines, they all
know that. They all know that, and they always say
the same thing. Well, it's a sports or the Buckeyes
against us, or it's like, oh, you're just jealous of
what we did and are No, it has nothing to
do with that. It has to do strictly with I
was disappointed.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
I'm beyond disappointed in Dave Portnoyd. But I don't even
paying attention to what he says. But but some of
the Michigan men, guys who had done it, I think,
and done it with some valor, uh you know, the
fact that they're saying, hey, you know what, we didn't
do anything. They didn't find anything. You know, guy robs

(22:03):
a bank and he gets out of.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
The well, you know. And Brillian is one of the
people that I worked with. And I like Braylan a lot,
and I really like his dad's stand, you know a lot. Okay,
So I liked them both very much. But the one
thing about Braylan Braylan is uh, you know, will never
like the Michigan State beat him. It's like it didn't
matter or whatever. He goes into that mode for some reason,

(22:28):
you know, with that. So, you know, as Braylan and
the other other other folks there, they know, they're smart
enough to know that it's wrong. But on the other hand,
they're loyal to their UH schools.

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Papacy Matt in the gang here on West Grand riverd
Okametz there making friends.

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