Prior to this past Sunday’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks the Detroit Tigers FINALLY retired the #11 of their late great manager Sparky Anderson who managed the team from 1979 to 1995.
Everything seemed perfect too. Sparky’s family was in attendance, many of Sparky’s old players were there including Kirk Gibson and Alan Trammell who are now part of the Diamondbacks organization, the weather was great and the Tigers won!
However, one person was missing from the festivities and that one person was Sparky Anderson.
Unfortunately as you know Sparky passed away last November at the age of 76 due to complications of dementia, never being able to see his name and number printed on the outfield wall with the other greats.
Some of you may ask why, why wasn’t Sparky’s name and number put on wall years ago when he was still alive? When Ernie was still alive and when Gibson and Trammell weren’t tied down to Arizona.
Well I guess it’s something we’ll never truly know the whole story behind. The only thing we as fans know is that Sparky left the Tigers on bad terms. He didn’t want to manage the replacement players in 1994 which left a bad impression with team owner Mike Ilitch. He also went into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a Cincinnati Red the team he managed from 1970 to 1978. This may have left a bad taste in the mouth of Ilitch and some Tigers fans however Sparky had his own personal reason for this decision that had nothing to do with the Tigers.
The fact of the matter is the Tigers dropped the ball on the way they handled the situation with Sparky.
Sparky didn’t leave the Reds on good terms yet they managed to retire his #10 back in 2005, 6 years earlier then when the Tigers decided to give Sparky the honor. Sparky was able to be on hand, talk to the crowd and give his thanks to the organization, the fans and vice versa. When you look at that, it’s kind of embarrassing for the Tigers organization that it took this long for their own retirement ceremony to happen.
Now Sparky isn’t totally innocent in all of this. He certainly had his faults however Mike Ilitch and the rest of the Tigers organization knew that Sparky deserved to have his name displayed in Comerica Park and his #11 retired.
Again, the ceremony for Sparky on Sunday was very well put together and very much deserving for the legendary manager. It was also something that should’ve taken place a decade ago.