Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030087
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLIE VINCENT
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Long
``I ain't here no more.''
And a lot of people will remember him best for saying things like that. Goofy sorts of misspoken sentiments.
He calls hangers-on ``hang-me-ons.''
And he has said: ``Pain don't hurt.''
So some will remember him mostly as a butcher of the English language, a latter-day Casey Stengel, a comparison Anderson does not discourage.
A lot of players will remember him for giving them a chance and a second chance and for never showing them up, never embarrassing them in public or in the press.
He said he wants to be remembered as a guy ``who never stole from anybody,'' and I suspect that means he thinks he gave an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
When Sparky Anderson walked out of the room Monday, though, the impression he left with me was his utter, blind faith that everything would be all right.
He always looked at the brightest side of things.
The day he took over as manager, given a 51/2-year contract in June 1979, he promised a World Series championship by 1984.
``Before I leave Detroit, we will have a world's championship here,'' he said. ``We're gonna do some winning, I swear to God we are. If I can't make this team a winner in five years, then I'll walk away and say I failed. But I don't intend to fail.''
And in 1984, the Tigers won the World Series.
He certainly wasn't always right with his bright predictions, but he couldn't help himself.
He saw the best in everything.
In his co-workers.
In the media.
In the fans.
In his players.
Sometimes he believed in players who couldn't really play as well in the field as in his mind, so he told us how much we could expect from Torey Lovullo and Chris Pittaro and - Lord help us all - Mike Moore.
They broke his promise but never his heart. Each year there was some new bright spot to point out, some reason to look forward to the summer, to the future that would be better.
Once upon a time, he was Mr. Cincinnati Red. That was a long time ago. Now, he says, if he is elected to the Hall of Fame he wants to be inducted as a Tiger because, ``This is home. ... Here we had true friends; there wasn't no hang-me-ons.
``I will always miss and always follow the Tigers.''
In his farewell he thanked everyone, everyone who ever worked for the Tigers, the players, the media, the fans. Especially the fans.
``We didn't win nothing since 1984, and they loved me forever,'' he said.
Oh, he was booed from time to time, but he didn't really think those fans meant anything by it.
It is his nature to find the best in the poor situation, like the little kid who awoke on Christmas morning to find a pile of horse manure under the family tree and ran shouting joyously through the house: ``There's a pony here somewhere!''
When he replaced Les Moss, Anderson was the Tigers' 12th manager in 20 years. Some were fired; some quit while on the verge of being run out of town; two died.
This is not where managers came to have a future.
But he came here with an attitude and a reputation. In Cincinnati, Johnny Bench called him ``John McGraw'' because, Bench said, ``He's well ahead of the game ... way ahead of the other manager.''
And when Anderson boarded an airplane Monday afternoon to fly to California, only McGraw and Connie Mack had managed more major-league victories.
``I'd like to say I was never scared, but that's not true. That would be a lie,'' Anderson said. ``I think I'm scared every day. Fear drives you. There are two kinds of fear, fear where you run and hide and fear where you come out in the middle of the room and attack it.
``Fear that you always do well.''
He learned some of that fear when he was fired from his first managing job. He survived the financial and emotional trauma by selling Nash Ramblers for a man named Milton Blish and said later, ``That experience made me a person. Before that, I was cocky. I felt I could go it alone. But I learned I needed other people. That made me grow up in a hurry.''
It was a lesson he never forgot.
He knew the media here took shots at him from time to time, criticized his pitching strategy sometimes, wondered about his player evaluation, questioned his walkout last spring.
Rarely did he complain, and Monday he complimented the media on its dealings with him and his linguistic idiosyncrasies by saying: ``You guys learned to subtract all the double-talk and get it going right.''
He said Monday he has thought for a while that he overstayed his time in Detroit, but as usual, he made the point with good humor.
``When you're losing every day, you've stayed too long,'' he said. ``It was getting where I'd forgot how to shake hands'' after a victory.
No one said Monday that Sparky Anderson had been fired. No one said he had quit.
The printed press release simply stated: ``Sparky Anderson, manager of the Detroit Tigers since June 12, 1979, has announced today that he is leaving the position effective immediately.''
It was, Anderson said, ``just time. I knew it was time. This city has to change, and it must change with someone else. Believe me, the change is right, the time is right, but don't expect miracles overnight.''
He leaves Detroit a success any way you care to measure it.
In friends made.
Victories won.
Good works done.
Fond memories left behind.
This morning, Sparky Anderson ain't here no more.
Charlie Vincent is a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press.
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