Sparky Anderson Rated Among Great Managers

There are many measures of greatness. By most of them, Detroit Tigers’ Manager Sparky Anderson measures up.

Human being? You couldn’t ask for a more thoughtful, considerate and compassionate person than George Anderson. That’s the name he is known by without a baseball uniform on.

“Off the field, he’s always been the same,” said one man who has known Anderson over the years, infielder Ray Knight of the Detroit Tigers. Knight broke in with Cincinnati under Anderson and was acquired by Detroit this spring.

“He’s so gracious to people. Spontaneous. There’s nothing cute. He’s willing to help. He remembers where he came from. He’s just a positive, good person,” Knight said.

His work on behalf of kids is limited only by baseball and the clock. Anderson will go anywhere and do anything possible if it will benefit a sick and underprivileged children.

And he’ll do it for little or nothing. Anderson donates a lot of his extra income to charity, including pay from the weekly column he does for a Detroit newspaper.

Visiting writers in need of a story aren’t in need of one if Anderson is around. He can fill up a notebook quicker than you can fill up the pages. In fact, the people who cover the Tigers on a regular basis sometimes complain they have less access to Anderson than the visiting media.

If this is true, it’s because the Detroit manager is bending over backwards to be helpful to people he knows he won’t see too often.

The way Anderson uses the King’s English would make a professor’s toes turn blue. But it makes sense and it’s colorful. You know an Anderson-ism when you hear it. And his colorful phrases usually make a point.

Those one-liners that make the television newcasts aren’t Anderson’s style. He runs more to philosophy and idealism. He is very big on doing things the “Right Way.”

Winning isn’t enough for Sparky Anderson. He wants to win the proper way. No gloating. No showing up the opposition. Win, but win graciously.

Winning is something Anderson knows something about. Is intimately acquainted with, in fact. His record when he is finished should be enough to enable him to reach his cherished goal of being selected to the Hall of Fame.

He won five division titles and two World Series in Cincinnati with the Big Red Machine. Anderson’s Detroit teams have twice won division championships and captured the World Series once.

Anderson stands 10th on the list of managers with the most victories and could easily end up third by the time he retires, with second a possibility.

Certainly the players and front offices Anderson has had to work with deserve credit. But to win over time -- and Anderson is approaching his third decade as a winning manager -- is no accident. Just one of his teams, the second, has finished below .500.

How Anderson won is important. He did it in Cincinnati where he only had to write down the same eight names every day. He’s winning in Detroit with a different lineup every night.

He won in Cincinnati with uncertain starters but a deep and excellent corps of middle and long relievers. He’s winning in Detroit with good, stable starting pitching and one or two top-flight relievers.

“The way he writes out his lineups is definitely a major change,” Knight noted. “As a role player, you notice it. I got into 100 games (actually 80) my rookie year, 1977, but because it was mainly as defense for Pete (Rose) at third I only batted 92 times. The next year I only batted 65 times.

“Now he doesn’t have that kind of teams. So he’s always trying to keep everybody sharp. He’ll put guys in the lineup just to give them some at-bats.”

What it means is Anderson is flexible, willing to adapt. And time has definitely mellowed the man whose once thick thatch of famous silver hair is slowly disappearing.

“When I was first with him in Cincinnati, he was really intense,” Knight said. “He was almost like a ‘Little General.’ He’d go around in spring training with his hands in his pockets and his head down -- but you’d know he’d never miss anything.

“He always had a scowl on his face. He always talked to the big boys but to the role players he’d say hello and that was about it. Because he was so intense.

“I remember one game I was playing shortstop. A pop fly fell between me and George Foster in left and later I made an error on another ball. After the inning, George Scherger (a coach) came over and told me Rick Auerbach was going in to play short. I was totally humiliated.

“I was a kid. But Sparky couldn’t stand anyone making him look bad. He hated losing and he’d carry it home with him. Now, he’s commenting a lot more -- to everybody.”

Knight immediately noticed the difference in Anderson when he reported to Detroit for spring training after being traded from Baltimore.

It was like boot camp in Cincinnati, with Anderson as the drill sergeant. Detroit was like day camp, with a difference. He left you on your own to get your work done, but he demanded it be done.

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x x x be done.

“Everything was supervised in Cincinnati,” Knight said. “You got the feeling he saw everything that was going on. He ran you as hard as he could and you did everything full speed. I hated it. We got a lot of hitting in, but we worked hard.

“Here, he’s got a lot of guys who have been in the majors 10-12 years and know how to play and what to do to get ready. So he lets you do it, just so it gets done.

“He’s mellowed. A lot. He used to argue with umpires strongly, finger in the face, very feisty.

“The first thing he told us this spring was that he wanted us to have fun. If we win, we win. But if we don’t, it’s because it just wasn’t there. I could never envision him saying that when I was in Cincinnati.”

Winning is still important to Anderson but people have become more so -- the mark of a big, big man.

Remember the AL playoffs last fall? When Anderson trotted Willie Hernandez out even though he knew the move was going to blow up in his face? And it did.

The next day, Anderson explained he was doing it to show Hernandez he remembered what the left-handed relief pitcher did for him in 1984. That he wasn’t abandoning him.

Even though Detroit tried without success to peddle Hernandez, that move right there may have been responsible for the pitcher’s turnabout this season. Anderson normally will not put a player into a situation where he’ll look bad. He knows what his players can do and what they cannot do. He minimizes the situations where failure is likely and thus maximizes his success.

If a player can’t hit fastballs, you often won’t see him in the lineup against hard throwers.

That’s where Anderson’s real greatness lies. He knows people and knows how to get the most out of them. Including himself.