Sparky’s Perspective on the Game Has Come in Handy

What a nightmare year this has been for Detroit Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson.

He went home to California for 16 days in May for what was said to be stress. He says now that “nobody will ever know what it was and it had nothing to do with baseball.”

His Tigers have the worst record in the majors (57-95 after Tuesday night’s 6-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles), the first time since Sparky came to Detroit in 1979 that the club has finished under .500.

Pete Rose, who played under Anderson with the Big Red Machine in Cincinnati, was banned from baseball for life. Commissioner Bart Giamatti died.

Tom Monaghan, owner of the Tigers and of Domino’s Pizza, is selling his pizza business. Though he says he’s not selling the ballclub, the pizza sale has people wondering.

Despite all that, Sparky sat in his office Tuesday night at Memorial Stadium, smoking a pipe, hands behind his head, philosophizing. You’d have thought he didn’t have a care in the world.

“I don’t know why people let this game get to them the way they do,” said Anderson, 55.

“Losing a baseball game ain’t a tragedy. Having a bad year is not a tragedy. Those things are disappointments, not tragedies.

“What happened to Pete Rose is a tragedy. The commissioner dying -- that was a tragedy. Somebody having cancer, that’s a tragedy. But not losing a ball game.

“Thirteen days from now, every ballplayer in our clubhouse will be fishing, hunting, remodeling the house, playing golf. For the next six months they’ll basically do nothing. No, this ain’t a tragedy.”

What it is, at the very least, is the flip side of managing as George “Sparky” Anderson has experienced it for 20 years in the big leagues.

The Tigers have been so bad all year that people may already be forgetting that Anderson’s career has been spectacularly successful.

He is the only manager to win 100-plus games in each major league, to sweep the playoffs in each league, to win a World Series championship in each league.

“You stay in this game long enough,” he said, “and you’ll get paid back.”

Five times Anderson has been voted Manager of the Year, yet he says that of all the trophies he owns, those mean the least.

“I always thought it was the players who did it, not the manager,” Sparky said. “I haven’t figured out yet what the manager does.”

It was suggested that the manager is responsible for such things as strategy and pitching changes.

“What good is it to tell ‘em to bunt,” he said, “if they can’t bunt? If you’ve got Dennis Eckersley in your bullpen, it’s easy to go to the pen. The players do it, not the manager.

“Look at Tommy Lasorda. He won all the honors last year. Why not this year?”

The slide this year of Lasorda and his Dodgers personifies what Sparky Anderson says about the uncertainties of baseball.

“The Cubs look like they’re going to win their division,” he said. “That’s a new champion from last year. San Francisco’s going to win the West. That’s another new champion. Either Baltimore or Toronto will win our division. That’s another new one.

“Maybe Oakland will win the West and maybe they won’t. California and Kansas City still have a shot. If one of them wins, that’s four new champions.”

Anderson has been around too long to take anything for granted. He remembers that two years ago Toronto lost its final seven games -- and Sparky’s Tigers won the American League East by one game.

“There’s no way to know what’s going to happen in this Baltimore-Toronto race,” he said. “I like Baltimore. I like their ballclub because they play hard. They have fun. Any time you play hard you have a chance.”

Despite his views on the value of a manager, he thinks Frank Robinson and the Cubs’ Don Zimmer should win the Manager of the Year awards this year.

The season has not been brutal on Sparky, though one would think it has been.

He says he has “good guys” on his club. “We haven’t had one thing happen in this clubhouse all year,” he said.

His owner, Monaghan, is “the best,” he says.

“I don’t ever hear a thing from him,” Sparky said. “I sat with him at a banquet a couple weeks ago, but he never comes in the clubhouse. As bad a year as we’ve had, he hasn’t said a word.

“He won’t sell this ballclub. This is his thing.”

Why have the Tigers been so bad?

“We’ve had 20 players disabled,” he said. That’s pretty good for starters.

Sparky expects to manage a few more years. He has learned that what he and his club are going through now is merely a disappointment.

“I like coming to Baltimore,” he said. “The fans here treat me great. Here and Boston.”

The fans here have liked Sparky Anderson since the 1970 World Series, when he caught Boog Powell and kept him from falling into the dugout catching a foul ball.

“Yeah, I’ve got a picture of that in my house in Thousand Oaks (Calif.),” Sparky said. “I told our players, ‘Catch him.’ You never want to see anybody get hurt.”

The man has always had a good perspective. This year he has needed it.