The baseball world has lost a great one. 🙁
The white-haired genius who helped make red the pre-eminent color in the National League in the ’70s and directed the American League team that roared loudest in ’80s has passed. Sparky Anderson, the chatty Hall of Famer given to outrageous success and outlandish predictions, joined the great majority Thursday, three days after he was admitted to a hospice in Thousand Oaks, Calif., where he had spent most of his adult life. Death came at age 76 for a man who had spent 42 years in professional baseball, 30 as a manager, including four in the Minors.
I had lost track of Sparky. I was a huge fan of the Big Red Machine in the early 70’s. My brothers and I went to “clinics” that individual Reds players would do for kids in and just outside of Cinci.