Sparky Anderson

I have to say something about Sparky Anderson, who died on Thursday at the age of 76. For over twenty years, he managed my favorite baseball teams. Although I have been a Tigers fan all my baseball life, I rooted hard for the Big Red Machine teams of the seventies, and then, when they ingloriously dumped him after the 1978 season, was tickled when the Tigers hired him, where he stayed for another sixteen years.

Sparky ended up as the all-time wins leader for managers for both teams, a considerable feat, given that both clubs were part of the original sixteen franchises (and the Reds go back to 1869). He ended up sixth on the all-time list, with over 2,000 wins, and was the first to win a World Series from both leagues (Tony LaRussa has since done it).

It's hard to know what Sparky was like other than his public persona. I have read, over the years, and especially in the last two days, accounts from those who saw how he worked, and he was a lot tougher than the image of the grandfatherly man who dropped double and triple negatives in his speech. I was amused by the story told by Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated of when Sparky spoke to the Reds team during spring training of 1975 and told them they had four stars on the team: Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez. The rest were, in his word, turds. Those players had shirts made up identifying them as turds, and the team went on to win 108 games and a World Series.

Sparky was endlessly fascinating for fans and media. He was a great storyteller, even with his Stengelese grammar, and a master of hyperbole. Posnanski remembers many of the things Sparky said over the years about players, such as that Kirk Gibson would be the next Mickey Mantle. It brought back memories of his lauding of Chris Pittaro, who was supposedly so good that Anderson was going to move Lou Whitaker from second base to third. That was a short-lived idea.

I got a chance to see Sparky in person at the Hall of Fame parade this past July (picture below). He looked old (he has looked old ever since he started managing at age 36, because his hair was already white) but hearty, so his death seems sudden to me. This year has been one of great loss for the Tigers, as Ernie Harwell passed away earlier. But the memories linger on.