Joe Falls, who for decades defined sports journalism in Detroit and beyond, has died.

Falls, who was 76 and had retired from the Detroit News last year because of complications of diabetes, died of heart failure Wednesday.

"Joe pretty much for years was one of the principal voices of sports," said Mark Silverman, publisher and editor of the News, which lured Falls from the Free Press in 1978. "I grew up reading him in his 'AL Beat' in the Sporting News."

That was common to fledgling journalists across the United States and Canada. Almost anyone who read the Sporting News and who wanted to be a sports writer wanted to be like Joe Falls.

"The great thing about Joe was the way he got people to open up," Silverman said. "He was a friend of Ted Williams, for goodness sakes, and no one could say that. He covered a half a century of American sports and he had a great sense of what the fans wanted. He could give them the defining moment of a game and he could write about the emotions without going overboard. He was the eyes, ears and voice of the fan and he had a really big heart. And on top of it all, he was a nice guy. We will miss him."

Falls came to Detroit in 1953 with the Associated Press, switched to the Detroit Times in 1956 and then joined the Free Press in 1960.

"He was a popular writer, first at the old Detroit Times, then the Free Press and finally the News, and baseball was his forte," said George Puscas, retired Free Press sports editor and columnist. "He knew all the great ones of the game — (Mickey) Mantle, (Yogi) Berra, Ted Williams and the like — and he thrived in a town that loved baseball as he did.

"Mostly, he loved his job; he seemed to mention it daily. He covered the full spectrum of sports, always with a strongly opinionated approach, and it won him a large following, including the usual handful of obstinate critics."

Falls was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001 and to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in April.

"When Joe was covering the Tigers, he was the best baseball writer in the country," Free Press baseball writer Gene Guidi said when Falls was elected to Cooperstown. "He was fair, and he understood the game and made the game fun to read."

One of the great ones Falls wrote about — and learned from — was Tigers legend Al Kaline.

"Joe's time and my time in Detroit pretty much coincided," Kaline said. "I have tremendous respect for Joe and his ability. Even though we didn't always agree, he was always very fair."

One of the things he remembered about Falls, Kaline said, was "his ability to ask questions to try to learn the ins and outs of the game."

"He would really try to get the inside from a player," Kaline said. "He would not only write about the game, but he wanted to know a little more about the game from a player's standpoint. He wanted to know about things that might not have been visible to the naked eye, things about what a player was trying to do that might help the team. He was interested in the little things that would go through a player's mind and why they would do certain things. … For whatever reason, he thought that I had a great knowledge of game, on situations and games and players. So I appreciated that."

When his health problems forced him to retire in May last year, Falls told Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg: "I had to stop, but it's OK. I really do think of people who have it worse than I do. … I have seen people in despair and I'm not in despair."

At the time, Falls had been getting a lot of phone calls from former athletes and colleagues. "They must be impressed; I must have been a hell of a writer," he said and laughed. "Yeah, that's a joke. That's a joke. But I'm proud of the fact that I think I was always fair. If I criticized you, I never took your skin off."

Falls covered every sports event worth covering and covered most of them dozens of times — the World Series, Wimbledon, the Indianapolis 500, the Stanley Cup finals, the Kentucky Derby, the Masters, the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl, the Final Four and about 5,000 baseball games.

"But most of all," he told Rosenberg, "I loved the high school basketball tournament."

Every year for 36 years, he would pick a different little town that was in the March Madness tournament. He would drive there and write a column about a place that didn't appear in Detroit newspapers very much.

During their interview, Falls, who came to Detroit from New York, looked out his back porch window and described his love for his adopted state.

"I'm going to die here," he said. "I'm not intending to die, but I'm intending to die here in Clarkston that I love, Detroit that I love."

Falls, who was hospitalized for the last two weeks of May, got his wish. He died at home with his wife Mary Jane at his side.

"It was very peaceful, he died in his sleep," she said.

She, too, appreciated her husband's career.

"He always loved what he did," she said. "I'm so happy he was able to do something he loved his entire life. He was a wonderful husband and a wonderful example to young writers. He always remembered people who helped him and was always happy when people wanted to talk to him about his job. He loved talking to the kids and they loved listening to his stories. He would tell them over and over and they never changed, because they were the truth.

"I don't know of anyone with more energy and enthusiasm — everything he wrote was a new challenge. I enjoyed having him home working in his office, and hearing the phone ring, him talking to people and his computer clacking away.

"Those are the sounds I'll remember."

In addition to his wife, Falls is survived by a daughter, Leslie Falls (John) Salgado and a grandchild, Mia.

Visitation will be 2-8 p.m. Sunday at the A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Home, 2600 Crooks Rd., Troy. Funeral mass is 10 a.m. Monday at St. Thomas More Church, 4580 Adams Rd., Troy. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to the Joe Falls Memorial Scholarship at Michigan State's school of journalism.

John Lowe contributed to this report.

Joseph F Falls