If Heaven has a baseball team, then they certainly now have their manager.
Legendary Tigers and Reds manager George “Sparky” Anderson died at his home today in California from complications of dementia. He was 76 years old. This comes a day after his family announced that he was admitted into a Hospice program due to his illness.
Sparky began his baseball career as a player breaking in with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1959 however he will be most remembered as being an iconic manager of the Cincinnati Reds from 1970 to 1978 then the Detroit Tigers from 1979 to 1995. During his managerial career he won two World Series Championships with the Reds who were known as the “Big Red Machine” in 1975 and 76 then again with the Detroit Tigers in 1984. He was the first manager to win a World Series in both the National and American Leagues. He was a two time AL Manager of the Year and is 6th on the all time managerial win list with 2,194 total wins.
Even though Sparky went into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000 as a Red, he truly loved the city of Detroit and his 16 years managing the Tigers.

“There’ll never be another like him,” Tigers’ Hall of Famer Al Kaline said of Anderson. “He was old school, and you always knew that he was the boss. But he was a great person as well. He cared deeply about this city.”
Sparky was very involved in local charities during his time in Detroit and remained involved long after he retired from the Tigers and baseball in 1995. He founded a charity called CATCH that from 1987-1995 issued grants of more then $2.3 million to assist needy pediatric patients

and also built an endowment of more than $5 million.
Sparky always believed that “there’s nothing you’ll ever do in this life better than helping a child”.  That remains CATCH’s mission to this very day.
Sparky is survived by his wife Carol, sons Lee and Albert, daughter Shirley Englebrecht and nine grandchildren. By his request there will be no memorial and in lieu of flowers the family asks that donors send money to a charity of their choice or to CATCH.
There’s going to be quite a baseball game up in the clouds tomorrow and I can’t think of no better manager than Sparky to manage it and no better announcer than Ernie to call it.

Source: The Detroit News

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