Sparky Anderson, the all-time leader among Tigers managers in victories, visibility and inimitable quotations, died Thursday at his home in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 76.
Anderson’s death came one day after the family announced that he was receiving hospice care at his home because of complications from dementia. The family said that at Anderson’s request, there will be no funeral or memorial service.
Anderson managed the Tigers from the middle of the 1979 season through 1995. His 17 seasons are most in club history. The runner-up is Hughie Jennings, who managed Ty Cobb’s Tigers for 14 seasons in the first part of the 20th Century. Anderson beat Jennings’ record for most victories by a Tigers manager by 200 (1,331-1,131).
Throughout his years near or at the top of baseball through his 2000 election to the Hall of Fame, Anderson rejected the airs of celebrity, no matter how prominent he became. He forever seemed as happy to see people he knew — and didn’t know — as they did to see him.
On trips to New York, he didn’t eat breakfast at the Tigers’ fancy hotel. He’d go across the street to Howard Johnson, where he would address his waiter by name as a friend. In countless such gestures, he succeeded in a mission he once imparted to his Hall of Fame catcher in Cincinnati, Johnny Bench: “As long as you remember where you are from, you will always know where you are going.”
Anderson, born in South Dakota during the Great Depression, said “thank you” to people for whom he signed autographs. He often quoted his father’s words to him: “Being nice to people is the only thing in life that will never cost you a dime. Treat them nice and they’ll treat you the same.”
A sign hung in Anderson’s mostly unadorned office at Tiger Stadium: “Every 24 hours the world turns over on someone who was sitting on top of it.”
Read more: Legendary Tigers manager Sparky Anderson dies at 76 | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
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