RIP Sparky Anderson...

[windsor]

Baseball has lost a classic...he wsa 76.

You gotta love this guy...from his HOF speech:

I got good players, stayed out of their way, let them win a lot and then just hung around for 26 years


Rest in Peace Sparky

[DukieInKansas]

Rest in peace, Sparky.

[colchar]

I was just going to post this. A sad day for baseball fans everywhere.

[lawgrad91]

RIP Sparky.

I hadn't realized he was so bad off until I saw earlier this week about him going into hospice with dementia and other issues.

Even though I was/am an Orioles fan, I followed the Big Red Machine growing up.

[EarlJam]

RIP Sparky.

I hadn't realized he was so bad off until I saw earlier this week about him going into hospice with dementia and other issues.

Even though I was/am an Orioles fan, I followed the Big Red Machine growing up.

Wow. That was fast. Heard about Hospice coming in yesterday. RIP Sparky....a brilliant baseball mind.

That's George and Sparky in the same year. Just wow.

My number one memory of Sparky was when he led the Detroit Tigers to an incredible 35-5 start in the American League East in '84. Put a quick end to my hopes for the O's repeating as champs.

Again, RIP Sparky. One of baseball's greatest.

-EarlJam

[bjornolf]

Absolutely. Well, he's back with his coach now. ;)

[captmojo]

Sparky seemed to be a very classy guy and he managed in that manner. I don't think you'd find a single one of his players that disliked him.

[bjornolf]

Everybody I ever talked to loved him. I've met him a half dozen times, mostly when I was a kid, and he was always great to me.

My great uncle, Rod Dedeaux, who I wrote about here upon his death, loved him very much. He called Sparky "Georgie" and was one of only two people to do so. Sparky said that when he eulogized Rod. Sparky said that when he was coming home from school as a young boy, he passed by USC's practice field just as a ball flew over the brick wall. He picked up the ball and walked onto the field and asked a player "Who's in charge here?" The player pointed him to Rod, and he walked right up to him and handed him the ball, telling him he'd found it outside the wall. Rod thanked him and asked him his name. "Everybody calls me Sparky," he said, "but my mom calls me Georgie." Rod asked him if he wanted a job as a bat boy. Sparky agreed, and Rod went over to Sparky's house the next day to talk to his mom about it. She agreed, and thus began Sparky's baseball career. Sparky said in the eulogy that Rod taught him everything he knew about baseball, and almost as much about life.

Many years later, when he was Rod's assistant coach, I was 3 and I was down in the dugout before a game. After warmups, it was time to start the game. I was sitting next to Sparky on the bench, and something was wrong. SC had no third baseman on the field. Rod yelled down the bench to his right hand man, "Hey Georgie, where's _____?" (sorry, I was 3, don't remember the guy's name)
Sparky responds, "The kid's got his glove, Coach!"
Rod, "Well, then, get it from him!"
"I ain't takin' it from him. YOU get it!"

I always loved that story. I still have a picture from that day of me sitting on their shoulders after the game.