Joe Falls

Who was Joe Falls?

Joseph Francis Falls was an American journalist. He began his career in his native New York City. At the age of 17 in 1945, he took a job as a copyboy for the Associated Press. After an apprenticeship of eight years, Falls moved to the Detroit bureau of the AP.

In Detroit, Falls flourished. He was hired by the Detroit Times in 1956 to cover the Detroit Tigers. He continued on the Tigers' beat with the Detroit Free Press from 1960 to 1978. His final move was to the Detroit News where he was a columnist and eventually Sports Editor.

During his career, Falls also had a weekly column in The Sporting News. It is said many young writers were so taken by his writing they wanted to become sportswriters. He also kept a statistic on Rocky Colavito during his years as a member of the Detroit Tigers. When Colavito stranded a runner, Falls would give him an RNBI. This infuriated Colavito and created a tense relationship between the two for several years.

Falls won several awards during his career. In 2001, he won the J. G. Taylor Spink Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame. After his retirement in 2003, he was named to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.