Jim Caple, former ESPN, national MLB writer, dies at 61

Jim Caple, a noted baseball writer who spent 17 years at ESPN, died Sunday, his wife wrote on social media. He was 61.

Caple covered 20 World Series for ESPN, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He also covered a half-dozen Olympic Games. He closed his career writing for The Athletic.

He was also one of the most popular columnists for ESPN.com’s Page 2, where he took a lighter look at sports and rarely missed a chance to poke fun at the New York Yankees. He turned that into a book, “The Devil Wears Pinstripes.” He also co-wrote the book “Best Boston Sports Arguments” with fellow sportswriter Steve Buckley and penned a novel, “The Navigator,” which was based in part on his father, who was a B-24 navigator in World War II.