Spark Notes

When I was a kid, I always sort of liked the Detroit Tigers. They played in this old-school ballpark halfway across the country. They were never a real threat to the Red Sox in the late-80's/early 90's, which made it acceptable to like them. They were great in RBI Baseball. And they had some fascinating Topps baseball cards that told me Cecil Fielder popped 51 home runs in 1991, that Alan Trammel was MVP-level awesome, Lou Whitaker was one of the best second basemen in the game, Chet Lemon had a funny name, and Dave Bergman had a great mustache. Their roster was stocked with all-or-nothing sluggers like Matt Nokes and Darrell Evans, and later Mickey Tettleton and Rob Deer. Kirk Gibson was the epitome of a term Boston fans love to use, "dirt dog." And when Travis Fryman arrived, he quickly blossomed into one of the best third basemen of the 90's. No matter they didn't get above 88 wins from 1988 (when I was in kindergarten) until 2006 (when I was in grad school); they were an entertaining bunch, those Detroit Tigers.

Their manager was a guy who, on every baseball card, looked about 20 years older than he actually was. It wasn't the lighting or the hat or the uniform or his mood, Sparky Anderson looked like he was competing with Connie Mack to be the oldest guy to ever manage a baseball team. And even though those late 80's/early 90's Tigers teams weren't all that good, there was something about having this old, folksy guy named "Sparky" at the helm that added to the Tigers' cool, throwback feel, even though they didn't have any pitching and finished in the second division most of the time. Now, my juvenile research also showed me that Sparky was a legend with three World Series titles to his name, two with the "Big Red Machine" and a 104-win 1984 campaign with the Tigers. When he retired he was third all-time in wins. Sparky Anderson was pretty much the man.

He was also one of baseball's good guys. Yesterday, a friend of mine posted this Sparky quote on his facebook wall: "It doesn't cost anything to be nice to people." How simple, yet entirely true is that? Sparky Anderson managed a 25-man roster of millionaires (50 men if you count their egos) traveling all over the country, yet he thought that was important. Why can't we remember that on a day-to-day basis?

Sparky Anderson died yesterday at age 76. My first thought was, "wait, he was only 76?" My second thought was, along with Ernie Harwell, the world lost two great Detroit Tigers this year. Both great men. They will be missed.