Minor League Manager Joe Sparks Still Awaiting Shot at Big Leagues

Hundreds of slow bus rides on dusty roads and train trips to towns that are small dots on a map have left Joe Sparks with a burning desire for jet travel as a major league manager.

Sparks, 50, has spent more than half his life in the minors as a player, coach or manager. His professional baseball career as a player began in 1956 at Hastings, Neb., and ended in 1969. He began managing in 1970 and has won American Assn. divisional titles three times since 1981, including 1986 when the Sporting News recognized him as its minor league manager of the year.

Sparks has endured the frustration of waiting for a call to the big leagues. His only experience at the highest echelon of baseball has come in two one-year stints as a coach.

Sparks currently has his Indianapolis Indians rolling toward a divisional title in a bid for a third consecutive American Assn. baseball championship under his leadership.

In those three years Sparks has helped develop the nucleus of the current roster of the parent Montreal Expos.

He’d like to manage them in the majors, but doesn’t think former Indianapolis’ manager Buck Rodgers will be vacating the managerial job soon. And Sparks isn’t interested in a coaching job under Rodgers or any other major league club.

“I feel like I’m serving our organization a lot more here than I would be sitting on the bench up there, coaching in the big league,” he said. “I feel that I don’t have a whole lot more to prove down here as a manager. . . . The last three years have been as good, if not better, than I could ever dream about.”

The Indians compiled a 154-126 mark the past two seasons, winning a second consecutive American Association championship last year despite finishing third in the regular season. The Indians beat Louisville, 3-2, in a best-of-five semifinal and Denver, 4-1, in the best-of-seven final.

More than half of Montreal’s current roster has played for Sparks here since 1986.

“After having all these players I’d like to manage in Montreal. We feel we have one of the top guys in baseball managing our club up there in Buck Rodgers, but sometimes funny things happen,” he said.

“I’d like to be there because I know the players like Dennis Martinez, Pascual Perez and (Luis) Rivera. And I feel there are several here this year who will be with the Expos in the next year or two,” Sparks adds.

“I sometimes get discouraged. You see all the good things happen and then you look up and you see people that really have not been successful end up with the prime job of managing a major league team,” Sparks said.

“That doesn’t set right with me at times. . . . When you have the confidence that I know I have; it tears you down a little bit, but then you pick yourself up off the floor and say well your time is coming,” Sparks continues.

“I feel it’s going to come and I know one thing for sure, the club that makes that decision will get a quality guy that knows how to win, knows how to put a program together, knows how to treat players and the press to get the job down. I’ve been a winner everywhere I’ve gone.”

Bill Stoneman, Montreal’s general manager and vice president, agrees that Sparks deserves a chance to manage in the big leagues.

“He’d make an excellent manager. He’s a large part of the reason we’ve had championship teams here. He has tremendous ability to get players to develop, responding to coaching and to win games,” Stoneman said. “He deserves a chance and I see it happening in the near future. We’d hate to lose him but we surely would not stand in his way.

“It’s just a matter of time before some organization opens its eyes and realizes Joe is the man they need as a manager.”

Outfielder Billy Moore is playing for Sparks for a third consecutive year.

“He lets you go out and play and doesn’t put any pressure on you. He doesn’t give you that ‘win or else’ attitude. He just coaches you on how to get things done, picks up the little mistakes and explains how you can eliminate them,” Moore said. “That attitude works because it makes you want to perform and you realize that is what you have to do if you want to get a shot in the bigs.”

“He has a terrific gift of getting players behind a common effort of winning and playing to their maximum potential,” said Indians’ president and general manager Max Schumacher. “Often when you have players come down from the majors, and we’ve had a few since Joe’s been here, they are disgruntled.

“He’s able to get them back into a winning positive spirit. That’s good for us and it’s also good for the player.