You Had To Break Out The Salt When Sparky Talked

Never again: Sparky Anderson


If Sparky Anderson was full of truth more than blather, Kirk Gibson would have made everyone forget Mickey Mantle, Lance Parrish would have been a first baseman, Chris Pittaro would have made Lou Whitaker move to third base, someone named Torey Lovullo would now have a statue in Comerica Park, and the 1980 Tigers would have won 90 games. And I'm just stopping because I don't like my paragraphs to be too long.

It always tickled me when I would see someone getting into a snit because of something Sparky, the Tigers' manager from 1979-95, would utter. Even after many years of hearing his cornpone gospel, folks around town would be aghast at his latest offering, and the phone lines would light up at the talk radio stations.

"Chris Pittaro? Who is HE?"

"Sparky said 'pain don't hurt'?"

"Torey Lovullo? Who is HE?"

"A manager has never won a game -- EVER?"

"Kevin Ritz? Who is HE?"

It amused me -- the reaction of the masses -- because if there was anyone in baseball history that you should listen to with a canister of salt nearby -- other than Casey Stengel -- it was George "Sparky" Anderson.

I used to listen to Sparky, too -- but I stopped sometime in the mid-'80's. I think he lost me with the Pittaro talk. Pittaro was a 23 year-old switch-hitter who was going to supplant Whitaker at second base, moving Sweet Lou to third. He was all the rage in spring training, Chris Pittaro was. That was when Sparky seemed to have a darling every March that he would showcase and try to pass off as not only a big leaguer, but a budding All-Star.

Pittaro was one of those fakers. He made it with the Tigers in 1985, alright, but only managed 62 at-bats and 15 hits. End of Tigers career. And that pretty much sealed it for me: from then on I allowed much of what Sparky Anderson said to sail through my head, ear-to-ear, with no filtering or impedance. Garbage in, garbage out.

But it wasn't always that way. I wanted to believe Spark when he told us that rookie Gibson, the ex-footballer out of Michigan State, reminded him of the legendary Mantle.

"This kid can do it all," Sparky gushed in his first spring training as Tigers manager, in 1980. "He can run, he can throw, he can hit with power." Then he spoke of Mantle, making the comparison that would not only haunt Sparky, but Gibson himself. The Tigers were starved in 1980 for a young Adonis to turn the town on. Whitaker and Alan Trammell were making a name for themselves, but they were little, punch-and-judy hitters who had slick, Gold Gloves. Kirk Gibson was a beast -- a brute of a man with flowing blond hair and still the football player's mentality. He would run through walls. If anyone, Gibson reminded me of Pete Rose, far more than Mantle. But once Sparky told the world that Kirk Gibson reminded him of Mickey Mantle, Gibby was in for a rough ride. Perhaps the area where he resembled Mantle the most was in terms of injuries. Other than that...

Remember Torey Lovullo? He was the rage in 1989's camp. Lovullo was 23 when he came up in late 1988, hitting .381 in 21 at-bats, including a homerun. So naturally in March 1989, the switch-hitter was the next greatest thing since...Chris Pittaro.

"There's really nothing Torey Lovullo can't do," Sparky told his media pawns.

Well, no -- if you take hitting a baseball out of the mix.

Lovullo, mostly an outfielder, managed 10 hits in 87 at-bats for the Tigers in '89, for a ghastly .115 average. The Tigers got rid of him -- sending him to the Yankees. He improved. Back in the majors in 1991 he hit a robust .176 in 51 at-bats. Lovullo would play with five more teams -- one each in the years of 1993, '94, '96, '98, and '99: California, Seattle, Oakland, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. In those seasons he only had more than 100 at-bats once (1993), and never batted higher than .251 (again in '93). In 737 career at-bats, Lovullo batted .224.

Returning to that 1980 camp, Sparky got cutesy and tried to make his star catcher Parrish into a first baseman. I remember that Parrish began the season at first base, but the experiment didn't last long, mainly because Lance Parrish had no clue at first base. According to baseball-reference.com, Parrish played five games at first in 1980 before Sparky got his wits about him.

But I must admit, since Sparky's been gone I kinda miss the blarney and the doublespeak. No one who's managed the team since -- Buddy Bell, Larry Parrish, Phil Garner, Luis Pujols, or Alan Trammell -- came close to outraging Tigers fans with his verbal nonsense. Mostly, they saved their nonsense for the dugout, unfortunately.

Now we have Jim Leyland, and he seems to be a straight shooter.

Damn him.