George Lee Anderson turns 74 today.
The brains behind the World Champion Big Red Machine and Detroit Tigers is one of the all time great characters. I had the chance to speak with him in 1999 following the release of his book, for the scholarly baseball journal, NINE. The article is not available on-line, so here it is from its manuscript form:
Interview with Sparky Anderson
Nine, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1999)
Like so many good managers, George “Sparky” Anderson was a mediocre player who spent a lot of time on the bench. But he used that time well, learning all the nuances of the game. He broke in with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Santa Barbara affiliate in 1953 and spent most of the next 16 years in the Minors as a player and manager. He was named tile MVP of the International League in 1958 and was rewarded with a promotion to the PhiIlies. In his only year in the Majors, he played 152 games batting .218 in 417 at bats.
After a “lengthy but undistinguished playing career,” Sparky took over the reins of the Toronto Maple Leafs (AAA) in 1964, at tile age of 30, leading them to a fifth-place finish. Over the next four years he managed the Rock Hill Cardinals (A-West Carolina), St. Petersburg Cardinals (A-Florida State), Modesto Reds (A-California), and the Asheville Tourists (AA-Southrn), all the while apprenticing for his big break. In 1969, he joined the coaching staff of tile expansion San Diego Padres under manager Preston Gomez. But when Lefty Phillips, one of Sparky’s mentors, was named manager of the Angels, Sparky decided to accept a coach’s slot in Anaheim. In October, 1969, out of the blue, Bob Howsam, general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, offered Anderson a
shot at managing his own team.
In his first year at the helm, he led tile “Big Red Machine” to the 1970 World Series. Over the next 25 years, he led over 4,000 games, almost 2,200 victories, which includes six divisional titles, five league championships, and three World Series titles. He was named “Manager of the Year” four times. All in all, Sparky has a one-way ticket to Cooperstown. Among the hundreds of players under his leadership, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Alan Trammel, John Morris, and Kirk Gibson (whom Anderson once called “the next Mickey Mantle”) are but a few of that generation’s stars to call Sparky “Skipper” as well as friend.
Sparky didn’t pack for Florida this year. Unlike some legends of tile game, he stays away from spring training.
I never go to the camps anymore. I feel like a green fly’. Now that’s funny but I do. I feel like people got work to do. They are not going to just walk by me without saying “hello” because they’ll feel like it’s rude to me and I just don’t want to put them in that position. That’s the way I liked it when I ran my camp. Not that I didn’t like to see the old timers. But during the time that you’re actually working it is a burden. you don’t want to be rude to them, but there are things you gotta do.
Getting the players ready isn’t the only job the manager has. Sparky was a public relations specialist as well, with a track record for both achievement on the field and as a great source for the press.
Absolutely, I was a public relations guy, because once you have the players set in the morning routine, the coaches really take over from there. All I do is move around and watch. And in spring training I enjoyed visiting with the fans. That’s a lot of fun. To me, spring training, other than the competitiveness of baseball, is the most fun of the whole season.
Following second-place finishes in 1977 and 1978, Anderson was fired by the Reds. After considering his future, Sparky took over the helm of the struggling Detroit Tigers during the 1979 season: A different league, a new way of managing. Anderson made good on his five-year plan and, by 1984, led the Tigers to the World Championship. But as hot as that team started, Sparky called that season “my toughest year as a manager.”
I had been fortunate enough to win in the National League. I had left Cincinnati, and I never said anything but I always told to myself “I will prove I can go take another club that is down and win again.” And I had said that I’d win in five years there, and 1984 was the fifth year.
Now, 1984 was a great season. We started out 35-5. Now, we are al1 creatures of habit and we all have wild ideas, and what happens to fans, and I don’t blame them, they were talking like the pennant was already ours, like everybody thought the season was a lock, totally over. Now it’s just a matter of thinking about who would win the other division, who are you gonna face in the playoff And, man, I was uneasy from then on. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that you can lose two or three guys just by flipping your finger That’s how quick injuries come up. You can lose two arms out of your pitching staff and lose your two top guys, and you might not win a game for two weeks. So I understood what could happen.
Since injuries seem to have taken a larger toll in recent years, Sparky addressed the physical makeup of today’s players. They may seem bigger and stronger, but . . .
I’m not saying they’re wrong in doing it. But you take a guy, say 180 pounds and now you’re gonna build him up and make him extremely strong, do you think you’re putting any extra tension and torque on his body? You can get in such good shape, your muscles are wound so tight that any little thing can rip something. I think they’re so strong that they’re more susceptible to injury now that they were when they were far more flexible.
Players aren’t the only ones who have to worry about longevity. Only two managers had a longer career than Anderson: John McGraw and Connie Mack (and you may have to rule him out since he was also the owner of his Philadelphia Athletics). Given the high salaries and the philosophy that you can’t fire 25 players so you fire the manager, Sparky expressed his opinions on long careers in the dugout and whether the new breed of player is harder to manage.
I’ve been fortunate to work with some really good people. But I don’t think anybody can manage for that length of time anymore. Let me say this. There are probably, right now, a handful: we have Lou Pinella, Tom Kelley, Tony LaRussa, Jimmy Leland; Phil Garne1; Felipe Alou. There’s guys there, half a dozen, maybe eight guys out of the 30 clubs, that are still left from what I call the old regime, that can stay around if they want to, Now whether they want to or not, that I don” know, But I’d probably have a better chance in Vegas betting than I would if I bet that one of them would keep on managing,
That’s why I admire the O’Malleys so much, They ran their team the way you’re supposed to run a business. They picked the guys they wanted in charge and they went right through the storms and the floods and everything else with them and knew they had the right guys. You had Alston and LaSorda. Imagine 43 years and only two managers. That’s the way baseball is to me.
Sparky began managing in the majors at the age of 35, practically a contemporary of the players under his charges. But his prematurely white mane made him look much older, even in photos from his playing days. In fact, when looking at vintage photos of players from the twenties to the sixties, for the most part, it’s hard to believe these men, these young men, were in their twenties. As he got older, Sparky didn’t change his approach.
People would ask, “Did you ever get a lot of trouble ” Maybe if I sat down and thought of every player I would come up with something, But no, not really; not what you could call anybody challenging me. Then I figured out why. The reason for it was most of the guys I was managing were kids when I started; and therefore it seemed like they had known me for so long. And the white hair; I really believe that that has some kind of an effect. They probably said, ‘The poor old guy, he’s been around so long ” And they never gave me problems.
Now as to managing today’s players, That is something we love to put on them. To me, it’s the most unfair thing in our game today. The easiest thing to do for me, for the fans, is to say; “Well look at those guys, the money they’re making. . . ” I want to ask you a question: how did they get that money? I might be crazy, but I’ll let any player take any contract he wants, fill out anything he wants in that contract, sign his name to it, send it in to the Commissioner and I bet you he’d void it. The only way that contract is any good is either the general manager president or owner must sign it. So how could that player get the money? I’m not saying every player is perfect and a role model and all that. But, by God, when we use the players as our excuse as to why we failed as managers, we’re kidding ourselves.
These guys are no different than when 1 started. They say the players don ‘t want to win. I got news for you, they want to win. If you show them how. See that old saying, “Don ‘t do as I do, do as 1 say. ” Stick that in the goddam river: Do as I show you. Players just want to be shown. Absolutely. They still do. And I’ll tell you another thing: all they want is you to be sincerely fail; and if fair means to nail them to the cross today then they can accept that as long as they know that it’s sincerely fair.
Tim McCarver wrote in his new book (Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans: Understanding and Interpreting the Game So You Can Watch it Like a Pro, with Danny Peary): “Sparky Anderson was the guy who really understood the role of manager in handling players. He was their mentor, friend and father figure.”
Well, I don ‘t know that I was all of those things, but I do know this: the players knew that if they came in my room and told me such and such or this and that, things that couldn’t come out, they knew that it never left me. Not to my coaches, not to the front office, to no one, because why should they not be able to have someone that they could go into and talk to and know when they left that room, that he s only gonna do one thing: he’ll help me if he can. Is that the manager s responsibility? Damn right it is. I have a saying. There’s 25 players in that room. Why should they have to understand me?
And it’s not just baseball. His philosophy carries over to the “regular” workplace as well.
To me, baseball is everything else. Sports has a great luxury because it has the advantage in that we get to have people come down to the ballpark or arena and see us. But other than that, all it is is being knocked down, getting up and fighting again. I guarantee you in your business, it’s a different thing all the time. It would be awful boring if every day was the same, especially if you’re getting your butt whipped all the time. Get real boring. I just believe that it is such a tough struggle for some of these young guys to perform in front of so many people all the time. People scream . . . they scream nasty things, don’t think they don’t. I lived with that for 25 years every time I made a pitching change. But you gotta be able to be there and help them, don’t run from them. I had the two rules I had with them: “You don’t have to like me and you don’t have to respect me, and the reason for that, gentlemen, is this: I’ll earn both of those things or I don’t deserve either “
Our biggest problem with baseball today is that for some reason we’re not sitting down and figuring out exactly how we’re gonna have families coming to the ballpark 10 and 15 years from now. In other words, our five-year olds, at the age of 20, are they gonna be fans? That’s our problem, and I still say you can have all the merchandising you want, and in my last year or two, I said, if I hear one more merchandising ginlmick, I’m gonna scream . . . I was just at a university and they gave me two baseball hats. I couldn’t believe them when I looked at them. They’re beautiful hats and on the back there’s the corporate sponsor And I said to myself, ‘Can you believe we’re into college merchandising now? ‘ Come on now. It’s costing a kid $80 to buy a jacket, $20 -22 to buy a hat, the t-shirts, the fake jerseys. The parents are working. I think they deserve a shot to try to give their children a chance to see great players play. But don’t rob them.
As to what he misses about the game since his retirement:
I miss the dugout part. I miss what I call “the war”, “the battle,” going into the last six outs. You know when they asked Earl Weaver “when do you start getting nervous? ” and he said, “Man, I get nervous when they throw the first pitch” and that’s the truth. And those last six outs. I used to play a game with Bench, and I played it with [Larry] Parrish and my other catchers. Those last six outs, as they disappeared we count them off John used to put his hand down when he’d be down in his crouch. A guy would make an out and he’d put, five fingers, four… because that’s the game, the last six outs.
And it’s very nerve-racking. After a game, the first thing I’d do when we won is get coffee, and sometimes I’d let it sit and I’d just stare at it on the desk with the writers and everyone there because I knew if I went to pick that up, I’d spill it allover me.
The best part about being away from the game, and the reason I would never go back, that I could not anymore, truthfully, go away eight months…I cheated my three children, like we all do when we try to make a buck for them and make a living. And my wife s the one who raised them. Now that they’re older they understand and I like to think we’re very close. But that just came in the last few years.
Oh gosh, and my grandchildren. I have 14 grandchildren, and I just made up my mind there s no money in the world . . . . My time is shortening down now; I’m not trying to get morbid. But there’s nothing there that last day that says, “Now you get to go and help out your grandchildren… “
But I have no regrets. Like my wife said; “If you would ever cry and say that you had been unfortunate, you ought to get a good slug in the head.” Anybody that had all the things, and I mean this, I’m not trying to be humble about it. You can 1 come from a little town like Bridgewater, South Dakota, and then spend 26 years in the Major Leagues with who I consider on both teams, some of the great players of our game – Trammel, Whitaker, Gibson, Bench, Morris, Morgan, Perez, Concepcion, Rose – you go on down the line. I’ve had some of the greatest and seen some of the great, great players of our time in the last 30 years.
Sparky spent his career managing small market teams. I asked if he might have liked a shot at the “bright lights, big city” teams.
You know something? Of all the places that I probably was enamoured by, the Cubbies to me have a very special place. I have a Cub hat and I wear it once in a while, because there again, it shows you that people have always taken a team in, not the record. You know, they love the Cubbies, they love that afternoon in the sun. When we would play there the fans would scream at you, but they’ d scream marvelous things at you. They might be kind of rough, but you knew that they liked you the way they screamed at you. I can’t explain it. It’s a special thing. Truthfully, and I just say this in josh, I don’t know if they ever should win. It might ruin them. I still keep in touch with some of the players. I see Joe Morgan about three times a year and I do Pete Rose s show, he has a radio show, he always grabs me up about four times. I like to go on, it builds my ego up. And John Bench, I see sometimes, Tony the same, so I do, you know. Not everyday things, but I do every once in a while get a phone call from them.
Anderson is now one of the voices of the Anaheim Angels, giving him a different perspective, and perhaps a new appreciation of the media. Where he was once the interviewed, now Sparky is the one asking the questions.
You know, I still have a little of that today. Oh, yes. And that’s from all those years of that thing. But you know what, I wouldn’t trade for a second. Because that was the excitement. That’s the part I’ll always miss, the excitement. I even get nervous at Anaheim when I’m doing the game. I haven’t become an all-out fan of the Angels, but I root for them. What the hell, I do their games. So I don’t do that kind of stuff over the mike. but I do root for them.
I had so many silly questions when I was managing, but when I got them I knew it was from somebody that wasn’t on their beat, it was from somebody from a small newspaper that was asking. I never thought of a question as being stupid. I always put it the other way: This guy don’t know, don’t embarrass him. Anybody can remember this: it’s easy to embarrass someone, but how would you like to be the one that’s getting embarrassed? And I wouldn’t do that.
The writers in Cincinnati, in my first years, came to me and asked .’Why are you giving these Springfield guys and Dayton guys as much time as us? ” And I told them right up front, “Boys, they’ll always get as much time as you. If they ask me a question, I’m gonna give them an answer.”
I think the best question I ever had was in Detroit when somebody asked me, “Who do you like the most?” And I said, “Me. ” And they looked at me. When I said that I meant that if I don t like me the most, then how am I gonna like other people and do things right for them?
Never a shrinking violet when it comes to expressing a controversial opinion, Sparky gave his take on whether Pete Rose should be allowed into the Hall of Fame.
Absolutely, without a question. I won’t even bat an eye. Because what are we judging? Are we judging him as a Hall of Fame manager when [his gambling and subsequent expulsion from baseball] happened? Or are we judging him as a player when it didn’t happen? There’s two sides. They never said anything about [his gambling] when he was playing.
And who’s going to play Sparky Anderson in the movie about his life?
(Laughs) If they ever did that …I couldn’t play the younger part, but the older part…If they ever had that, I’ll be truthful with you, I would like to do it myself I know I sound corny and all, but I know I could make it believable. I wouldn’t want somebody making something that isn’t right and not believable. That is one thing they could never make that film unless it was going to be correct. They do things in movies that I sit there and I don’t even play in that sport and I know it ain’t right.
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The Amazon Report:
Bless You Boys: Diary of the Detroit Tigers’ 1984 Season
is available on Amazon.com,
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