Thursday, November 4, 2010

Memories of Sparky Anderson



A reader remembers Sparky Anderson:
God bless you Sparky. I’ll remember you jumping over the chalk on the way to the mound; Talking to fans at the 1988 Fenway opener and throwing your arm around journeyman Paul Gibson making his debut before the player introductions and an epic Clemens/Morris matchup. There was your trademark half-wave and grin offered to Tigers fans after a sweep at Comiskey in the eighties. And were those tears in your eyes as you waved to the fans on your last visit to Fenway?
Here's more Sparky at the 25th anniversary of Detroit's 1984 World Series win.



2 comments:

  1. In the late summer of '84 my first husband and I went to Beaver Island for a week's vacation, and we listened to the ballgames on a little radio snuggled up in bed in our room at the Beaver Island Lodge every night. At the bar (The Shamrock, I think? Is it still there?) in town, there was a poster on the wall of the Tigers that year and we kept testing each other to see if we could remember all their names. I remember drinking a lot of beer under that poster and having a great time. It's one of my fondest memories of a great summer, and it feels poignant to be saying goodbye to Sparky tonight. Thanks, Sparky, for the summer of '84.

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  2. Jan, that's a very Michigan way to remember Sparky...drinking on Beaver Island.

    I was a senior in high school in 1984. Went to several regular season games when we could get tickets and a car. I was a miserable freshman in college when they won the series. I watched in the tv lounge of my dorm with several lunkheads from New Jersey who didn't understand the significance of what was unfolding before them. Like many foolish baseball fans, I thought they might win two or three more titles with that lineup.

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