[Westside]

Just a day after reports surfaced that former Reds and Tigers manager Sparky Anderson was in hospice care suffering from the effects of dementia, the Hall of Famer manager passed away on Thursday, at the age of 76. Anderson is best known for his back-to-back World Series titles as manager of the “Big Red Machine” Cincinnati teams in 1975 and 1976. Two years later, he was fired after leading the team to two second-place finishes, losing the pennant race in the National League West by 10 games and two and a half games, respectively, in his final two seasons (if it had existed in the two-division format 32 years ago, Anderson’s Reds would have won the 1978 Wild Card). He was quickly picked up by the Tigers, and, by his seventh season at the helm, transformed them from a fifth-place team to a World Series winner, in 1984.

When he resigned as manager of the Tigers in 1995, Anderson ranked third in all-time managerial wins (he is now sixth), and left the game as the first manager to win titles in both leagues. “His players loved him, he loved his players, and he loved the game of baseball,” former Red Pete Rose told ESPN on Thursday. “There isn’t another person in baseball like Sparky Anderson. He gave his whole life to the game.” Jerry Crown of the Los Angeles Times notes that, six times in eight seasons, from 1970 to 1977, Anderson managed the National League MVP: Johnny Bench in 1970 and 1972, Rose in 1973, Joe Morgan in 1975 and 1976, and George Foster in 1977. “Only Joe Torre of the St. Louis Cardinals in ‘71 and Steve Garvey of the Dodgers in ‘74 broke the Reds’ stranglehold,” Crowe writes.

Anderson also became a bit of a legend for his unique, sometimes circuitous way of doing three things:

1. He was nicknamed “Captain Hook” for his yanking of starters. “People say I was five years ahead of the league, having more saves than complete games,” Anderson wrote in the foreword to the Cincinnati Inquirer’s 2006 baseball preview section. “But I didn’t do it because it was in some book. I did it because we didn’t have but a couple of guys who could go much past six innings.”

2. He had a way of butchering words, player names, and sentences. Writers loved him for it, and often mistook him for an extrovert, but in a 1993 story by Sports Illustrated’s Steve Rushin, Anderson refuted that notion. “My real name is George, and that’s the name I like best, and it’s who I am. Sparky was given to me as a player, and it stayed with me. But George is who I am, and when I hit spring training, it takes me four or five days to become Sparky again. My wife, she always knows when I switch over from George to Sparky.”

3. He tweaked lineups constantly. “Sparky was sometimes the only one who understood his Byzantine lineup changes,” Rushin wrote on Thursday. “A confused scoreboard operator at Tiger Stadium once posted in lights: Now Batting Number 11 Sparky Anderson.”

With all of his accomplishments, it’s actually a surprise when one finds out that Anderson’s number hasn’t been retired by the team. “The Tigers deprived their fans from being able to show their love and gratitude for the manager who helped give Detroit some of its finest baseball memories,” MLive.com’s Ian Casselberry writes. “And now, it’s too late.”

[Westside]

Sparky was my favorite manager. He manages 2 of my favorite teams (Reds and Tigers). In 1984 I got to see the Tigers play the Indians at Tiger Stadium. Before the game, I got to see Sparky hit some fly balls to some of his players out in the outfield. I got within 10 feet of him. The outfield seats at old Tiger Stadium started basically at field level. I was only 11 at the time, but I remember how he was constantly joking and interacting with some of the fans.