Sparky Manages to Make His Way to Cooperstown

Sparky Anderson, the manager whose folksy tales of baseball and life made him a latter-day Casey Stengel, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday.

Three hours after being notified by the electors of the Veterans Committee, Anderson was roundly cheered in the grill at Sunset Hills Country Club in Thousand Oaks, where he is a member. Later, when he ticked off the benefits of induction, five more handicap strokes from his regular foursome was high on the list.

“You got it!” came a large voice from the back of the room, where his golfing buddies stood, and Anderson shook his fist in delight.

“Never in my wildest did I ever dream about the Hall of Fame,” Anderson said. “The Hall of Fame is beyond anything I could come up with.”

The veterans’ committee also elected Bid McPhee, second baseman for the Reds from 1882-99, and outfielder Turkey Stearns, who played in the Negro leagues.

Tony Perez, who played for Anderson in Cincinnati, and Carlton Fisk, who hit his dramatic home run in the 1975 World Series with Anderson in the opposing dugout, had been elected earlier by the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America. Longtime Red broadcaster Marty Brennaman was voted into the broadcast wing.

Unable to decide from among Gil Hodges, Bill Mazeroski, Dom DiMaggio and Tony Oliva, the veterans’ committee did not elect a former big league player. Needing 11 votes, Mazeroski came the closest with 10.

Anderson, the only manager to win World Series championships in both leagues, said he will wear a Cincinnati cap at his induction, July 23 in Cooperstown, N.Y. In his nine years with the Reds, he won two World Series, in 1975 and ’76. Then he managed the Detroit Tigers for 17 years, winning the Series in 1984.

He does not wear the rings from those championship seasons, he said, having given two to his sons and one to his grandson.

“I never wore a World Series ring, and I will wear this [Hall of Fame] ring until I die,” Anderson said. “That’s how much difference there is between the World Series and the Hall of Fame.”

Anderson retired in 1995 with a record of 2,194-1,834. Only Connie Mack and John McGraw won more games.

At 66, Anderson still looks to have been whittled from an old Louisville Slugger.

He walks the neighborhood around his Thousand Oaks home, where he has lived for 33 years, every morning, and plays golf nearly as often. He appears recovered from last summer’s heart attack and triple bypass surgery, and friends insist he has more energy than ever.

Tuesday started the same as usual for Anderson, though earlier.

“I knew I just wasn’t going to lie in bed,” he said. “I had the yips. Then, the longer it went, I got nervous.”

The call came finally from Joe Brown, a Veterans Committee member and friend for more than three decades, at just after 11 a.m. Anderson had been mixing birdseed in the garage.

“George?” Brown said, using Anderson’s given name.

“Joe?” Anderson replied. “Did we or didn’t we?”

“We did,” Brown told him.

By speakerphone, committee members Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron and Juan Marichal, among others, shouted their approval and applauded Anderson’s inclusion. Anderson teared up at the news, according to confidant Dan Ewald, who had handed Anderson the phone.

Later, behind a lectern at Sunset Hills, Anderson pulled on a jersey and cap supplied by the Hall of Fame.

As he did, he said, “I believe that no human being can be better than another human being. But they can be more fortunate. That’s what happened to me.”

Born in Bridgewater, S.D., Anderson moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was 9. He attended Dorsey High, and became friendly with USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux, who always called him “Georgie.”

After a playing career that included one major league season--as a second baseman with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1959--Anderson began a coaching career. He was a coach with the Angels and had not managed above double A when Red General Manager Bob Howsam hired him to take over his big league club for the 1970 season.

For that gesture of faith, Anderson said he would wear the cap that Howsam gave him.

“Bob Howsam hired a 35-year-old that nobody knew,” Anderson said. “He had the courage and fortitude to do that. If he hadn’t, I doubt very much that I ever would have managed in the major leagues.”

Anderson hated to have to choose between Detroit and Cincinnati.

“I wish you did not have to wear a hat,” he said.

The 16th manager inducted, Anderson has been to Cooperstown, but said he has never been inside the Hall of Fame.

“I didn’t ever want to go into the most precious place in the world unless I belonged there,” he said.

Asked the first display he would look for in July, Anderson said he wished to see the team photo from the 1951 American Legion champions from Crenshaw Post 750. Seems Anderson was in the Hall of Fame all along.

“July 23 will not be my day,” he said. “July 23 will belong to many, starting with my father and mother, and then to every person who put me on that podium.”

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RANDY HARVEY

Anderson was a safe bet for Hall of Fame, unlike one of his most famous players.

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OTHER INDUCTEES

Turkey Stearns

Bid McPhee