Quite a character and not a bad manager. 3 WS championships 2 with the Big Red Machine and 1 with the Tigers. RIP Sparky!
A somber day in Detroit I can assure you. RIP Sparky......your teams greatly entertained me on many a summer night in the motorcity.
RIP. Sparky Anderson was a familiar face around here. He even did tv commercials for Ford of Upland, which is owned by a local baseball family. Another familiar local in the baseball news is Ron Roenicke. I see that he's been named manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. He's from Covina and Mt. Sac; his kids are local athletes around here and his wife is a PE teacher at Chino Hills HS...
Great manager. Loved by his players and respected throughout the game. The outpouring of heartfelt tributes has really been something. Sparky was a local kid. He played for Dorsey High and served as a batboy for the USC nine. Good to see someone from this dot on the map make good.
I was a central ohio boy back in the day - a diehard Yankee fan - smack in the middle of the two cities....Cincy and Cleveland. While I preferred the Tribe, they were miserable and I despised everything about the Big Red Machine.....except for Sparky. My hatred for the Reds never rubbed off on Sparky. Sparky was old school and a good guy and I always liked Sparky. RIP my friend.....
Very sad news to read. I always loved watching Sparky being interviewed as he turned answering in a non responsive manner a question he did not want to answer into an art form. A shrewd, street-smart, very intelligent man who became a folk hero in Detroit and deservedly so. The Tigers had more than a few head cases he had to deal with while he was in Detroit but I cannot recall reading about clubhouse turmoil when he was in charge. He seemed to a God given gift to know how to read, deal with, and lead people. I cannot recall a team being more prepared for the playoffs than the 84 Tigers. We all have seen teams who had great regular seasons fall apart in the playoffs, but he had that team ready when the playoffs started and they just ripped through the Royals and Padres. RIP.
1984 was a magical baseball season in Detroit. I was at opening day.....the clinching game for the AL East and a WS game as well. In between my future brother-n-law and I made it a habit to venture to downtown Detroit and imbibe generous quantities of alcohol and attend Tigers games.....most often in the raucous bleacher seats. This was one year before the birth of my first son and of course my ability to get out of the house was never the same after that.