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Date of Birth
The day Sparky Anderson was born. He was born in Bridgewater, South Dakota. -
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Sparky Anderson's Life
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Leading
Anderson was named the Cincinnati Reds manager on October 8, 1969. Sparky lead the Reds to 102 wins and the National League pennant in 1970. -
Human
With Sparky's great human skills both teams that he managed (Reds, Tigers) made it to the world series and had over 100 wins. -
Entrepre
While managing the Reds Sparky saw that the star pitcher had shown weakness and automatically he fired him. He was given the nickname "Captain Hook." -
Controlling
Due to the controlling of Sparky, the Reds won 102 games and ultimately sweeping the New York Yankees in the Series in 1976. -
Resource Allocator
Sparky was very pleased with the performance of the Reds. Everything was turning out exactely how he planned it. The Reds had a 14-3 record in postseason play against the Pirates, Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees. -
Figurehead
When the Reds finished second to the Dodgers two years in a row the general manager Dick Wagner thought that Sparky wasn't performing his duties anymore. The manager decided to "shake up" the team, so he fired Sparky. -
Planning
Sparky had moved to the Detroit Tigers after being hired on June 14, 1979. He planned and announced that after seeing their talent, that they would win a pennant in 5 years. -
Organization
With Sparky's organization in 1984, Detroit opened the season 9-0, was 35–5 after 40 games, a major league record. They also had a 104–58 record for the year. -
Staffing
Sparky had staffed the team so well that they had beaten the San Diego Padres in five games in the World Series for Sparky's third world title. With the Tigers Sparky had won his first manager of the year award. -
Conceptual
Due to Sparky's great conceptual skills Sparky's Tigers finished in third place in both 1985 and 1986. With a 9–5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on July 29, 1986, Anderson became the first to achieve 600 career wins as a manager in both the American and National Leagues. -
Leader
Sparky had lead the Tigers to the major league's best record in 1987. He had also won his second manager of the year award that year. -
Disturbance Handler
Sparky and the Tigers lost a surprising 103 games in the year of 1989. Sparky then decided to take a month long leave due to the stress of losing wore on him. Sparky had made a bad choice, and was not a very good disturbance handler. -
Spokesper
During his managing career Sparky was known to "heap lavish praise" on his ballplayers when talking to the media. He declared Kirk Gibson "the next Mickey Mantle," he said Mike Laga, who played for him in 1984, would "make us forget every power hitter who ever lived." -
Technical
Due to his great technical skills in managing Sparky got a total of 2,194 career wins at the end of his managerial career. Sparky retiered from managing in 1995. -
Date of Death
This was the day Sparky died. Anderson died at the age 76 on Thursday, November 4, 2010 in Thousand Oaks.
