Playboy Interview: Sparky Anderson

With all due respect to Lee Iacocca, Sparky Anderson must be the best thing to hit the beleaguered city of Detroit in a long time. When he was hired to take over as manager of the Detroit Tigers three months into the 1979 season, the team was in a nose dive almost as deep as the auto industry's. Cars weren't selling; the Tigers sure weren't winning. So on his first day on the job, Sparky announced that within five years--by 1984--the Tigers would win it all, would become the world champions of baseball. Baseball writers scoffed--"Sparky Announces a five-year plan," one headline sneered. After all, hadn't he been fired the previous year by the Cincinnati Reds'? Despite a reputation for canniness with the press (and for cheerfully mangling the English language), wasn't it likely that ol' Sparky had seen his best days'?

Last year, Sparky proved that his best days were still ahead of him. He shaped a world-champion team out of a collection of players many sportswriters had written off. And he did it right on schedule. The Detroit Tigers not only won the world series, they set a lot of records along the way. The team's 35 wins and five, losses during the first two months set a major-league record for the best start in baseball history. The Tigers remained in first place from opening day to the final day of the season; the last club to do that had been the legendary 1927 New York Yankees with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. While winning more games than any previous Tigers team, they drew 2,704,794 fans--the highest home attendance in team history, just shy of the American League's all-time attendance mark. The Tigers finished an astonishing 15 games ahead of their nearest rival in baseball's toughest division, the American League East, before they went on to sweep Kansas City in the American League play-offs and then beat the San Diego Padres four games to one in the world series. In short, the Tigers had a monster year.

Those are the team statistics. Sparky's personal statistics as a manager in 1984 put him on a pedestal loftier than that of any other manager in baseball history: He became the first manager to win a world series in both leagues; the first to win 100 games or more in both leagues; the first to win the Manager of the Year award in both leagues. He now holds the record for the most play-off games won by any manager--17. All of which makes him today, by percentages, the winningest active manager in the game.

"He's not the smartest strategist in the world," says Joe Morgan, Sparky's star second baseman at Cincinnati, "[but] the most overrated idea in baseball is that a manager wins and loses games with strategic moves on the field. Sparky is smart enough to know that if he can get the players to perform on the field the way they are capable, he doesn't have to make those strategic moves."

Adds the Tigers' Hall of Fame radio announcer, Ernie Harwell: "I've been in baseball almost 50 years and I don't recall ever seeing a manager use all the players he has available so well. Everybody gets a chance to play, sooner or later--Sparky's the master of platooning. Also the master of the sneak attack--doing the unexpected. He doesn't believe in computer readouts of player statistics, like so many managers do these days--he plays his hunches and, more often than not, his hunches pay off for him. I think maybe he does have a genius, and that's not believing he's a genius, the way a lot of managers believe they are."

Genius or not, he's certainly the most famous fellow ever to hail from Bridgewater, South Dakota. His father moved the family to Los Angeles when Sparky was eight; Sparky started hanging around the University of Southern California baseball practices, eventually becoming the bat boy. He fell "totally in love" with the game and became a good enough high school player to catch the eye of a Brooklyn Dodgers scout, a family friend who signed him up after graduation for a small bonus--enough to buy a wedding ring for his high school sweetheart, who has been his wife ever since--and off he went into the low minor leagues, class C of the California league. He knew his only way to make it to the major leagues was through sheer fierceness on the field; since he didn't have the natural athlete's ability, he had to be a scrapper. As he moved his way up through the minor leagues in the Fifties, he became famous for his determination, sometimes even kneeling in front of second base and daring the opposing runner to reach the bag by running over him. He was not fond of umpires who disagreed with his opinions, and at one of his minor-league pit stops, the local radio announcer would describe his flare-ups with umpires as "the sparks; there go the sparks at second base again." George Anderson, the name on the birth certificate, went into limbo that year, and Sparky was born--a name that has stuck throughout his life in baseball. His dream of being a major-leaguer came true briefly in 1959, when he landed a utility-infielder job with the Philadelphia Phillies. But the next year, he was shipped down again, and he figured that the only way to stay in the game he loved so much was to manage.

After a series of minor-league managing posts during the Sixties, Sparky re-entered the major leagues as a coach in 1969 with a brand-new team, the San Diego Padres. the next year, a man he had known throughout his minor-league experience was hired as the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, who were looking for a new manager. Sparky got the job. Eight years later, having won five division titles, four pennants and two world series and having finished lower than second only once, the most celebrated National League manager of the Seventies was told he was out of a job by the new general manager.

Although the Detroit Tigers improved under Sparky's management, they continued to finish out of the money. But Sparky didn't. A smart CBS vice-president hired him to do "color work" on the network's world-series radio broadcasts. He proved to be colorful, indeed--he gained a national reputation for describing the finer points of the game with down-home humor, an occasional malapropism and such Dizzy Dean-like enthusiasm that millions of television viewers turned off the sound, watched the game and listened to Sparky's radio commentary. With his reputation as a latter-day Casey Stengel still on the rise, Playboy sent free-lance writer Ken Kelley to follow him around during the off season in Puerto Rico, Detroit and Southern California. Kelley's report:

"The first thing that hits you when you meet Sparky is how much the game can age a guy who has spent all his life in it and is so devoted to it. He's just 51 years old, but his hair is pure white and his face is a road map of every stretch of minor-league highway he ever traveled. I knew his age, of course, but I think sometimes his looks made me forget; when we talked baseball history, I'd ask him what it was like to see such and such an old-timer play. 'Ken,' he'd admonish with a chuckle, you're forgettin' I don't go back that far. I just look old. I feel young.'

"The second thing you notice is how thoughtful he is before he answers a question. He tamps down the tobacco in his pipe, slowly stokes it--and then he's off and running: He answers the question, expands on it, raises new questions and then expands some more.

"When I approached him to do the 'Interview,' he suggested we meet in San Juan--he was going there for a week of scouting some Tigers prospects playing in the winter league, and he thought it might be a relaxing time to get in some good conversation. Nothing could have been further from the truth in terms of relaxation; but as it turned out, the experience of being with him there proved over and over again that he was telling the truth when he said he felt young. We spent almost one week doing three-hour sessions, and I'd always come away exhausted from the heat, the jet lag and the intensity of the conversation. But afterward, Sparky would go out and do the job he'd gone down to do--often spending hours traveling to a remote town on the island, hours watching the game and talking with the players, hours coming back, only to have to meet me again the next day. One day, he even played second base for three innings in an old-timers game; he didn't get a hit, but he was all over his territory, making some great catches and throws. All this in addition to the effort he made with the fans--not just to all the Puerto Rican fans, to whom he was the great Señor Sparky, but to the American tourists as well.

"During our final session at his home in Thousand Oaks, California, things were much more relaxed and private, though when I arrived, he was grimacing over the latest stack of fan mail that had turned the dining-room table into a small-scale Mount Fuji. We sat on his patio, the sun shone bright and he talked a bit about the difference between Sparky Anderson--the showbiz guy, the do-your-job guy--and George Anderson, the guy who, as he puts it, keeps him honest when he's being Sparky. I came away knowing I had met them both, and both were a pleasure."

[Q] Playboy: We want to start with the serious baseball questions first--like, when did you start chewing bubble gum?

[A] Anderson: Well, I started chewing it about 30 years ago, and then I started wrappin' it around tobacco--I don't like the taste of chewin' tobacco, so I chew the bubble gum and then wrap it around the wad of tobacco.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds delicious.

[A] Anderson: Well, it don't taste so good, but it don't taste so bad once you get used to it. Sort of a neuter taste--ain't that the word?--something to chew on and spit out, for the nerves. Why the heck are you askin', anyway? I thought you said serious.

[Q] Playboy: Because during the world series last year, every other TV shot seemed to show you blowing a big pink bubble.

[A] Anderson: If you're askin' if I'm worried about my image that way, the answer is no--I never think about that kind of thing. A lot of players these days chew the gum, but they don't wrap it around tobacco or blow any bubbles. A lot of other players just chaw on a plug of tobacoo, like players did in the old days, because they think it's part of the tradition, I guess. Not as much as they used to in the old days, though, I don't think. It's funny to me when I see sports reporters make a big deal out of why players spit so much----

[Q] Playboy: Why do they spit so much?

[A] Anderson: Again, it's just a nervous habit. Maybe it ain't the greatest thing to look at on television, but the cameras could focus on other things, like the game goin' on. The point is, when you gotta spit, you gotta spit, and it ain't the ballplayers' fault that it shows up on television. They're just playin' the game, doin' their job.

[Q] Playboy: You had quite a bit of media exposure when you managed Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in the Seventies; but last year, with the Tigers' success, it seemed as if every ten minutes there was another picture of you in the papers atop your latest colorful quote.

[A] Anderson: I'll tell ya, it was the longest year I ever had. Startin' off like we did, it created a time bomb. When you start out with a 35-5 record, there's so much attention. Everybody wanted to have a piece of me. It was curious to me, though, because even up to the end, many of the stories were sayin', "Who are these guys? When's this whole thing gonna collapse?" Like, nobody can be this good; it's just a fluke, and pretty soon the Orioles will get their rear in gear and overtake us.

[Q] Playboy: Did the team's spectacular start lead to overconfidence?

[A] Anderson: Not for me. I've been in the game long enough to know that you can hit a losing streak so fast, where you just can't win--same way as when you're on a winning streak, you just can't lose. I've always been a pessimist that way--I always think a losing streak is just around the corner. It's a matter of you're gonna win only so many games, I don't care who you are or how you start out.

[Q] Playboy: You played in the major leagues for one season and obviously didn't overwhelm the world with your ability as a player.

[A] Anderson: I think it's fair to say that I was an extremely mediocre player.

[Q] Playboy: Why is it that so many mediocre players turn out to be great managers and so many great players turn out to be lousy managers? Ty Cobb and Ted Williams, for instance, were poor managers.

[A] Anderson: Well, when you're a mediocre player, you need to talk to so many different people that you learn how to communicate with players, because so many people have tried to help you. And you have a great chance to learn more about the game because you're warmin' your butt on the bench. I also think it's unfair to lay the blame on, say, a Ted Williams for his managing record, because you have to look at the club he had to deal with. I think good clubs make good managers, not the other way around.

[A] Pete Rose was hired as the player-manager of the Reds last year, and I think he's gonna be the first great player who becomes a great manager, for the simple reason that he gives so much; that's the way he is. I think that came across in the Playboy Interview I read back in the late Seventies [September 1979].

[Q] Playboy: Backing up a bit, what got you into baseball? In both of the books you've written--The Main Spark, when you were in Cincinnati, and Bless You Boys, in Detroit--you give a lot of credit to your father for your baseball career. Did he fill you with dreams of big-league glory?

[A] Anderson: I'll tell ya somethin'--when I was a kid, I never thought about the big leagues or nothin', because I didn't know about them. Until I was eight years old, my family was in South Dakota and I was playing pickup games my daddy would organize, but nobody knew anything about the major leagues. It was real remote out there. Then, when my family moved to Los Angeles, the big deal was the Pacific Coast League--technically, I guess, it was minor-league ball, but it was the biggest deal on the West Coast. My dad moved us out there because he got a job in a defense plant, in a Navy shipyard, painting ships. But I was real fortunate, because the University of Southern California, which had the greatest baseball coach in history, Rod Dedeaux--he's still the coach there--was only about two blocks away, and I got to become bat boy and baseball became my life. I went there every day, every day, and I just loved to play. I'd get up at eight o'clock in the morning in the summer and run down there, because there was a game of "over the line"--if you hit the ball over the outfielder's head, it was a single--the Los Angeles version of sand-lot baseball, I guess. And we'd play it all summer. I look back and try to think, When did I really want to be a baseball player? And I don't think there's an answer; one thing just led to another--I just fell in love with baseball, and I don't know why. I really don't. I'm glad I did, though. I can say that out loud, because I tried basketball and football when I was in high school, and they didn't do for me what baseball did. There's just a special magic to the game of baseball.

[Q] Playboy: That raises an interesting point. Until the late Sixties, baseball was always the national pastime, almost more American than apple pie. Then football became the passion. Baseball attendance declined; it became a recurrent theme in the press to denounce baseball as boring. Now it's the reverse--interest in football is down, as are its TV ratings, while baseball attendance is at an all-time high and the latest broadcasting rights to the game almost quadrupled the previous contract. Why?

[A] Anderson: I think one of the reasons is that in baseball, size has nothin' to do with performance, really. You could be a midget and make it, if you were quick enough, in baseball. It ain't a contact sport, like football. It's a matter of skill, and I think the American public appreciates skill--what a little guy can do when he does it right. There's no room on a football team for a shortstop. Even though he don't weigh too much, his agility is essential to winning games. We have the best in the business in shortstops with Alan Trammell, as far as I'm concerned. I still love watching football, I gotta say that.

[Q] Playboy: Many sportswriters mention the fact that you delegate authority in the same way football coaches do--you give your management team power to decide things in a way unusual in baseball, where managers usually play God.

[A] Anderson: Let's leave God out of it for the time being--that's a whole different thing we can get into later--but I know what you're sayin'. I just feel that when I hire a coach, I hire him because he's very knowledgeable. Just because he ain't the manager don't mean he's got no brains. My pitching coach I rely on a lot; he runs everything with the pitchers until game time. When game time comes, I make every decision. For this reason: My coach is not being paid to take the burden of winning the game--that's my job, and I want to know what he thinks about the situation, but I'm the guy who wins or loses.

[Q] Playboy: Many managers "call" the pitches from the dugout. Do you do that?

[A] Anderson: Once in a while, when we have a particular strategy in mind; but we have such a great catcher in Lance Parrish now that we don't do it very much. I trust his judgment. That's a luxury a lot of managers don't have.

[Q] Playboy: You've often said you had the luxury of having the greatest catcher in history--Johnny Bench at Cincinnati.

[A] Anderson: Yeah, and I'm not puttin' down Lance when I say that. Those Cincinnati years were just a manager's dream. How often do you get a Johnny Bench, a Pete Rose, a Joe Morgan, a Tony Perez--a Hall of Fame dream team at its peak that you sort of inherit your first year as a major-league manager? I was real lucky.

[Q] Playboy: So far, you make it seem as if being a great manager is a matter of being the right guy in line at the supermarket. But it's certainly more than that, isn't it?

[A] Anderson: Yeah, you're right, and I guess the most important quality of leadership is honesty. The player has to know when he's talkin' to you that you're bein' honest with him. That's a must. But I really don't know the answer to your question, because--and I'm treatin' you like a player now, bein' honest--I honestly don't know what makes a great manager, and anybody who says he knows don't know. There's no guidelines. To judge it that way, every manager who won would have to have the same team and have that same team have the same type of year in the same situation over and over--then we'd be able to tell.

[Q] Playboy: Casey Stengel? His Yankees during the Fifties were pretty consistent winners, wouldn't you say?

[A] Anderson: He was great, no question. He also had tremendous teams. Some people say you'd have to be a complete idiot not to win with the talent he had, but the point is, he won. And we'll never know whether, if someone else had managed the Yankees then, he would have won. I just think it's hogwash for a manager to sit down with a team owner and say, "Well, I can do this and I can do that"--it's so unpredictable.

[Q] Playboy: Hold it, Sparky. Didn't you predict that the Tigers would be world champions by 1984?

[A] Anderson: Was I right? Did I do it?

[Q] Playboy: Sure you were, but you've just contradicted yourself.

[A] Anderson: Well, maybe you're right. You want to know the reason I said I'd take the team downtown within five years--win it all? I had a brand-new five-year contract. What was I supposed to say at all the press conferences--"I promise we'll finish fourth after five years"? I just figured it was my job to win and say so--that's why my boss pays me money.

[A] And you wouldn't be talkin' to me if I didn't deliver--I know that. I mean, bein' the first manager to win it all in both leagues didn't really make me no prettier, did it? Didn't make me no more handsome. Didn't reduce my blood pressure, didn't take away my baseball ulcer.

[Q] Playboy: When the Tigers hired you, did you become the highest-paid manager in the history of the game?

[A] Anderson: Jeez, I really don't know. I really don't like to talk about money. Why are you askin' this?

[Q] Playboy: Well, for one thing, in his July 1983 Playboy Interview, Earl Weaver claims that he agreed to sign on for his final season with Baltimore only if he'd be the highest-paid manager in baseball history. He says that you were the highest-paid manager then and that he----

[A] Anderson: Wanted to one-up me? I see what you're gettin' at. I agreed to let the Tigers let Baltimore know what I was makin'. It was OK with me. But I'll tell you what--I let the Tigers tell the Orioles about my salary, since Earl felt it was so important, but what was not mentioned to Earl was that I got a yearly cost-of-living increase. He didn't know about that.

[Q] Playboy: So you're still the highest paid, then? You have a gleam in your eyes.

[A] Anderson: The way I look at it, a good manager never compares what he's makin' against what another guy's makin'.

[Q] Playboy: You just signed a new two-year contract with the Tigers. Did you first try to find out what your peers were worth?

[A] Anderson: Peers--ain't that guys together in the bathroom? [Laughs] Nah. I really mean this: I make enough. I make enough to support my wife and kids and do what I want to do. I'm sure Tommy Lasorda [manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers] makes a lot more money than me. Probably Billy Martin makes more money than me by not managing the Yankees. I'm just perfectly happy with the situation I've got. I like my job. Still, you never know in the business from one day to the next. I'd won the pennant four times in Cincinnati. When I was fired in 1978, the team finished second but a good second--you know what I mean? We weren't that many games out of first. I'd given the organization everything I had, and I got fired over breakfast after the Cincinnati general manager, Dick Wagner, flew out to talk to me about the rebuilding of the team. He just said, "Our plans don't include you anymore"--something like that.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel about that?

[A] Anderson: Well, of course I was shocked. Wagner at least had the guts to fly out to the West Coast and tell me in person. I give him that. That was decent. But I gotta tell you and you gotta print this--after I was fired, it put a fire in my belly that burned until I proved 'em wrong. Ever since the day they fired me, I wanted to prove 'em wrong, and I did, finally. It took a while, but I did it.

[Q] Playboy: Was it a matter of revenge?

[A] Anderson: I've asked myself that a lot. I don't think so, because I'm not revengeful--is that a word?

[Q] Playboy: It is now. Did you feel bitter? That's what we're asking.

[A] Anderson: Of course I did. But it really boiled down to provin' again that I know how to do my job. I was pretty happy when I proved my point last year.

[Q] Playboy: Back to the money aspect for a moment. On most teams these days, managers don't make as much money as their biggest star or, in many cases, even their bench warmers--the average major-league-baseball salary is $329,000 a year. Sports is the only business where the worker can make more than the boss. How does that affect the boss?

[A] Anderson: I'll tell ya how it affects this boss. I don't care how much a guy makes, if he don't perform the way I think he should, he's gonna hear about it from me. His salary is none of my business; his performance is. I really don't pay attention to any of the stuff about a guy making a million a year or a billion a year--I just think about what my job is, and my job is to put the best team on the field I can, every day. If a player's agent can prove to the team owner that he's worth a million, that's fine by me. But when he puts on that uniform, he has to prove to me that he can play the game. That's all. I don't get no pressure from my boss to play a guy just because he's makin' a lot of money.

[Q] Playboy: Whereas the Yankees' George Steinbrenner has been known to call down to the dugout and say, "Put this millionaire in the game, now!"

[A] Anderson: Yeah, I've read about that in the papers. I'd quit in a minute if that ever happened to me. It never would happen to me with the Tigers. I wasn't hired to be the team's accountant.

[Q] Playboy: The Tigers were sold in 1983 to Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino's Pizza operation, for $55,000,000-- the highest price ever paid for any sports franchise. In an unprecedented move, Monaghan offered to let you buy some stock in the team, which makes you the first manager since Connie Mack, the legendary owner-manager of the old Philadelphia A's, to have a piece of the rock.

[A] Anderson: Rock? [Laughs] Rocks break down into sand, right? What I own is a pocketful of sand. But I do got some sand and a pocket to put it in. It was a great expression of the organization's faith in me when Tom Monaghan let me buy in, and no owner ever did that before. That feels pretty good to an old South Dakota boy who spent so much of his baseball life cramped on a team bus by day and sharin' a crummy motel room at night with the world's loudest-snorin' third baseman.

[Q] Playboy: You're referring to the time you spent in the minor leagues.

[A] Anderson: Yeah--minor towns, minor food, minor bus drivers, minor everything. Room service was the peanut-butter sandwich your wife packed up for you the night before you went on a two-week road trip to Montana. I ain't bitchin' about it, you gotta understand--really, I hope it don't sound that way. It's just that most baseball fans don't understand how hard it was in the old days--once you made the major leagues, your meal allowance let you move up from peanut butter to hamburgers, maybe a steak once in a while.

[Q] Playboy: You've been married to your high school sweetheart, Carol, since you started out in baseball as a teenager, and you've brought up three kids together. Isn't baseball rough on the family?

[A] Anderson: You sure are right, and that's somethin' that never gets talked about. You know, I look back on it and I really don't know how we did it. I sure don't know how Carol did it. I'm a real lucky man--it's unbelievable. I have a wife who is just unreal. You know, all the press this year about me--first manager to win it all in both leagues, first manager to win 100 games in both leagues. I'll say this, the main reason I'm lucky is that Carol put up with me and baseball life. She basically had to raise the children by herself and yet still be there with me when I'm cryin'. I don't care who we are, we have our ups and downs. When you have a woman who, when you're down, she's right there to listen--well, I'll just say that my best friend is my wife. I know that whatever happens, she won't run south on me. Hell or high water, she's gonna be there.

[A] So many baseball people have their marriages break up--two, three, four times. I truly believe that if a man and a woman aren't the best of friends first, then there ain't much chance.

[Q] Playboy: Shaky moments?

[A] Anderson: We got married in 1953, when we were both 19 years old. That first year, we'd go through weeks when we hardly spoke to each other because of my schedule. When I look back and try to put everything together, I get scared. I never dreamed after I was in high school that I wouldn't play baseball--never even dreamed about it. Education, to be honest with ya, wasn't my cup of tea. I'm just not an educated person. Not book educated. I've never read a book, for instance.

[Q] Playboy: Not even the two you wrote with sportswriters, both of which became huge regional best sellers?

[A] Anderson: I read 'em before they came out, but they weren't books then. I'm just sayin' that so often, not being a book-educated person is real hard on ya. Especially when you're younger--don't think it's not. Like, when I was in a room with lawyers or doctors, I knew they have to have eight to 12 years of education. I'll tell ya this, when I first got into higher baseball--in lower baseball it really didn't matter--I would sit and watch at a lunch or dinner or somethin' and try to figure out which fork and knife you used first; hell, I didn't know what to do, except to look at what everybody else did. When you're raised the way I was--I'm not cryin' poverty, but you just sit down at the table and aim for the platter. The first gets what he's gonna get.

[A] I'll never forget the time I was hired in Cincinnati and I was supposed to give a speech, and I'd never given a speech in my life--this was in '70, before I'd ever managed a major-league game in my life, and this will sound crazy to you, but the m.c. got up at the microphone and said, "I want to introduce everyone on the dais," and I said to myself, "Dais? I thought this was the head table." Same way with spelling--I still can't spell for nothin', although I've got a little better over the years. I still feel bad about it; but as you get older, you learn that all the lawyers and doctors and writers--well, you can't do what they can do, but they can't do what you can do.

[A] I'll tell ya, I sure don't know what else I would have done. Only thing I can think of is, I would have worked in the factory or become a house painter, like my daddy. So when people ask me why I got into baseball--well, my God, baseball gave me everything. Everything. I don't know if baseball decided me or if I decided baseball. I wonder all the time, How did it happen? I just never dreamed that I wouldn't always have baseball, startin' out in 1953, my first year, when I was with Santa Barbara in the California State League. I'd signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. When I look back, I just think for some reason, you're picked out. I don't know why. Like I don't know why I was the first manager to win in both leagues, not just the pennant but the world series.

[Q] Playboy: As you put it before, you inherited winners with the Reds. With the Tigers, you had to build a team. Did you get pretty much free rein to do that?

[A] Anderson: I wouldn't go that far, but the Tigers pretty much never hardly said no to me. But I'm one of those guys who can never get enough--when I get somethin', I want somethin' more. Keep in mind that I also inherited a lot of talent when I took over the Tigers--guys who were babies then but guys who had tons of potential. Lou Whitaker is the best second baseman in baseball now. Lance Parrish is the best catcher; Trammell....

[Q] Playboy: Those are the "babies" you inherited, and under you the babies became stars. But you also inherited a team stacked with a lot of deadwood. Since the advent of free agency, the Tigers have had a notoriously stingy attitude about dipping into the free-agent draft. Did that bother you when you signed?

[A] Anderson: Not at all, because I've always felt the key to a winning club was a successful farm system, and I knew the Tigers have always put a lot of emphasis on their farm system. I don't think the kind of quick-fix approach is a real way to build a team. Look at Gene Autry and all the money he's spent on the Angels by goin' into the free-agent draft so heavy. It hasn't really paid off for him, has it? All the millions he's spent got him one division title a couple of years back. I never thought the Tigers were stingy about free agency, just smart. The club spent a lot of money last year to sign Darrel Evans when he became a free agent from the San Francisco Giants. And the chemistry was right.

[A] See, I'm a little different, I think, in my belief from most managers. Most managers think winning creates chemistry. I think chemistry creates winning--that the way the guys you have work together makes you, as a manager, a winner----

[Q] Playboy: Leo Durocher's famous quote is "Nice guys finish last"----

[A] Anderson: And he's right, if all they are is nice guys. But if they have real talent and they get along together, they will win. That's the chemistry I'm talkin' about--the gettin' along together.

[Q] Playboy: Meaning?

[A] Anderson: They don't go and hide from each other when things get goin' tough. They'll win together and they'll lose together, but they'll stay together.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that a fairy-tale concept these days? The great teams of the past would stay together for years because the players were at the mercy of the owners. Isn't it tougher when your star center fielder can become a free agent and leave you for greener pastures?

[A] Anderson: There's no doubt about it, the game has changed forever in that respect. The players have so much more control than when I grew up in baseball.

[Q] Playboy: Is that bad?

[A] Anderson: Certainly not from the standpoint of a player. You'd have to be stupid not to get everything you could get, and free agency left the barn door wide-open. I'm lookin' at it from the standpoint of a manager--it's hard enough to put together a team of winners, and you have a lot less control now. And you're right--it makes it a lot harder to keep up a team spirit once you got a player leavin'. I'll tell ya what keeps up my spirit, though--the fans. We had great fans in Cincinnati, but I've never seen fans like we got in Detroit. Sure, they get rowdy at times and overdo it, but Detroit fans just love baseball so much. When I first went there, in June of '79, I couldn't believe it. The Tigers were in fifth place at the time, and I couldn't believe how much daily attention they were getting. I'd just come from a place where I got fired for finishing second. One of the first things I told my team was, "Man, do you know how lucky you are? Where I come from, they lynch fifth-place teams!" Another thing about Detroit--the fans never boo their players. They do boo their managers, though, somethin' I learned right away. My first couple of years, I used to take my hat off, put it above the dugout and just test the temperature out there before I decided if I could go to the mound to change pitchers. The natives were pretty restless.

[Q] Playboy: Was it hard to take that heat?

[A] Anderson: Not really. I've always looked at it this way: As the manager, you represent to the fans the essence of the team. If you win, they love you, and if you lose, it ain't a question of they hate you--they don't even know you--but you represent what they don't like: a loser. I'm real popular after last year, but I know this--by the time this Interview comes out, if the Tigers ain't doin' as well as we were doin' last year, I'm gonna be the biggest bum in town. The fans'll be on me. But that's the way they are. And it's part of the job. At least I feel pretty secure in my job with Detroit.

[Q] Playboy: Your boss, Jim Campbell, would probably agree. By the way, he told us that it's not uncommon for you to charge up to his office when you're on a losing streak and propose dozens of ideas about trades that could turn everything around; he said he puts them into his "walking-eagle file." What is a walking eagle?

[A] Anderson: A bird so full of shit he can't fly. Sometimes I get so frustrated when I'm losin' that I want to change things tomorrow; and by the time tomorrow comes, I've got another whole new idea. And then, if we lose again, tomorrow I got another new idea. Just my way of spoutin' off, I guess, because I hate to lose so much.

[Q] Playboy: Once you've won it all in one year, is there even more pressure the following year?

[A] Anderson: Oh, man, you gotta work so much harder after you win--I try to look at our success from the viewpoint of all the teams we beat, because I got plenty of experience being a loser, and when you're in the losin' dugout and watch the team enjoy the whole year the way the Tigers did this year, watchin' everything go wonderful for the other side--hey, you're not too happy about it. And I know that unhappiness kinda simmers in the off season. Plus, a manager has the problem of dealin' with players who're satisfied to only win once--they got their world-series ring, they proved something.

[Q] Playboy: How do you help the players deal with that kind of pressure?

[A] Anderson: I know how tough it is to go out and compete every day. And I feel so much for my players and I hate to see any player go through a rough time--and I try to tell him when he is goin' through a rough time, "Nobody's gonna shoot you. All they can do is boo at you and yell at you." I was talkin' about it before--fans don't realize that when you have to perform in 162 games a year, with the travelin' and all the things you have to do, it's just the toughest sport there is. You don't have the hitting you have in football, you don't have the physical contact you have in basketball or hockey; what you have is a mental thing that involves more traveling than any other sport, more games by far than any other sport. Including spring training, you're gonna play almost 200 ball games. People just have no idea how hard it is. It's hard enough when you're winning; when you're 15 games below .500, man, it's murder. Even when you're winning as good as we did this year, you're always gonna have a couple of guys with a burr up their ass.

[Q] Playboy: That happened to you last year, when your star starting pitcher, Jack Morris, after pitching a no-hitter in April and by May seeming so unbeatable that all the writers were predicting he'd win 30 games, went into a prolonged tail spin and got pouty with the press, as if the writers were making him lose. He wouldn't give interviews after the games he pitched and----

[A] Anderson: Well, we've all done it.

[Q] Playboy: You? The guy who's never at a loss for words for the press?

[A] Anderson: Yeah, even me. I swore once I'd never talk to you guys again, too. Lasted over a day. [Laughs] Players express their frustrations in different ways. Some guys show their emotions different than other guys. I remember when I was managin' the Reds, I was in my office and--I won't name the two players, but a guy came runnin' in and told me, "They're at it."

[Q] Playboy: It's all over now--who are we talking about?

[A] Anderson: All I'm gonna say is that one was a starting pitcher, one a guy who played every day. I ran out and they were swinging at each other, havin' a fisticuff.

[Q] Playboy: You stopped it?

[A] Anderson: I had to. I separated 'em, sent one into the trainer's room and cooled 'em down so's I could talk to 'em and find out what was goin' on. It got settled. Again, what you gotta understand about team sports, there's no way for people to live together as long as you do when you're playin' the game and not have some flareups, even between guys who like each other.

[Q] Playboy: Unlike many managers, you're not a believer in team meetings, are you?

[A] Anderson: Very few, very rarely. Every now and then, you have to. I do it when things are gettin' a little nonchalant, when there's not enough intensity. You have to remind 'em that they can't just throw their glove out on the field and expect to win, that you gotta go out there and go after people. I usually make it very quick and just say it ain't gonna go on and let's end it immediately or I'll do such and such.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of such and such?

[A] Anderson: Dollars. Fines. I'm not a big one for rules no more, but you still have to lay the law down sometimes. If one guy can be late for practice, it means the 24 other guys can be late. If that happens, you ain't a team no more. But please print this--the 1984 Tigers were a team in the truest sense of the word.

[Q] Playboy: On the subject of fines, isn't it meaningless to fine a player $1000 when he's making 500 times that much?

[A] Anderson: Again, I don't care what his pay check is. It may not hurt him in the wallet the way it used to, but he's hearin' from me that he ain't performing the way I expect him to. I think it still sinks in the way it used to. Players never wanna be in the manager's doghouse. Could mean they don't get played. That could hurt their wallet in next year's negotiations.

[Q] Playboy: Earlier, you mentioned how upset you get when you've lost a few games. Why does it get to you so much?

[A] Anderson: Losin' is lousy. It really affects me. It affects my family, too. Even if it's just a minor slump--two or three losing games in a row--the way my mind works, I just think I'll never win another game. I know I should know better, but I got this disease called baseball and that's all I ever think about, except for my family. It's war, it really is, and my job is to win the war. When my kids lived at home, there'd be (continued on page 126)Sparky Anderson(continued from page 76) times after I lost a game when I'd just be starin' at the wall, wonderin' what I could have done better, and meanwhile my kids were watchin' television and tryin' to get my attention--"Hey, Daddy, guess what I did in school today" or "Hey, Daddy, look what's on television." And my wife would come over and try to talk me back into reality, and I'd still be in the baseball game in my mind, starin' at the wall, not even hearin'. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it just gets to me so much that I'm really convinced that I'll never win another ball game. Never! I really regret that I got baseball in my blood so much in terms of my family--I should have been a better father to my kids when they were growin' up, and I know I'm a lousy husband. I'm so, just so blessed that the woman I've always been in love with has stayed in love with me.

[Q] Playboy: While we're on the topic of women, there was the case of a female reporter last year who was verbally abused by a couple of your players when she entered the clubroom to interview them. What's your reaction to such incidents?

[A] Anderson: I think that the players ain't used to a woman being in the clubhouse--they get nervous. I know any time I see a woman in the clubhouse after the game, I make sure I'm properly dressed. There ain't that many anyhow, and it's so recent that they are around at all, players can't get used to it. It's a shame that they treat 'em wrong. They're just doin' a job, too. I remember talking to one of my coaches about it, and he told me that he thinks most players ain't worried about the women looking at their "attributes" but their lack of attributes. [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: The larger question, though, is about players and women. In the old days, there were curfews and bed checks----

[A] Anderson: Yeah, I remember the old days--makes me feel old when you put it that way, 'cause it wasn't that long ago to me--but I remember when the manager or the coach would come into your room at night and actually touch the beds to make sure you were there and not some pillow arrangement to fake him out. Those days are over. I ain't a cop, that's not my job. I do have a curfew--on the road, players should be in their room by ten o'clock.

[Q] Playboy: How do you enforce it?

[A] Anderson: I don't do bed checks, that's for sure, but I just make 'em aware that I expect them to follow the rules. I'm not being paid to be a baby sitter, but they all know that I expect them to be honorable.

[Q] Playboy: The honor system----

[A] Anderson: Yeah, I just figure that these guys are professionals, they've made it to the major leagues, they're bein' paid a lot, and if they want to stick around for a while, they should follow my rules. As far as women they might get together with----

[Q] Playboy: You know even the married players go out on the town when they're on theroad----

[A] Anderson: Sure I do, but I'm also not a marriage counselor. I just think it's none of my business what a player does on his own time, unless I think there's somethin' goin' on that interferes with his performance on the field. See, I have to deal with 25 human beings every day, and I'm not about to judge what they do after the ball game is over. I'm so satisfied with my married life that I never get tempted to look at another woman--I'm kind of a square guy that way, I guess. But, man, you're dealin' with athletes who are in the prime of their life, and life on the road makes 'em--restless, I guess that's the word, no matter if they're married or unmarried or never been married or never could get married because they're so ugly. A lot of ugly guys can hit a baseball and catch it. Look at me----

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you're ugly?

[A] Anderson: I ain't no Clark Gable, that's for sure. I'm 51 years old and all my hair is white, but you watched me play a couple of innings in Puerto Rico at the old-timers' game. Was I a cat? Was I a cat? [Laughs] I handled second base pretty well, don't you think? Don't even answer that--I don't think I'm ugly, but I look so much older than I am. I feel young, but I know I look 95.

[Q] Playboy: Job stress?

[A] Anderson: I really don't know--I know that I started gettin' white hair when I was about 25. For a while. I tried that Grecian Formula thing, and I just decided, "Hey, forget it, don't worry about it." And I don't--I look in the mirror and shave every day and it ain't that bad. I know the press thought I got a lot prettier last year.

[Q] Playboy: Winning will do that.

[A] Anderson: Yeah, I understand the ground rules of this thing--the winners win and the losers get nothin'. Like a poker game.

[Q] Playboy: You're a poker player?

[A] Anderson: Not no more--I'm strictly baseball these days. But it's the same deal. The winners laugh and tell jokes, and the losers cry. And I know what it means to cry. I told you before about how I don't usually like to call a team meetin'. But I did call one last year, when we were goin' so good and I felt the team was gettin' a little overconfident and losin' sight of reallife. I said, "When you drive out of the ball park"--Tiger Stadium ain't in such a good part of town--"take a drive around for two blocks. And see the people on the streets, how bad off they are--if you gave any one of 'em $50, they'd think you gave them $1,000,000. They have nothin'. And maybe if you look at that, you'll stop your bitchin' and moanin'."

[Q] Playboy: Did they get the message?

[A] Anderson: I was satisfied with the results.

[Q] Playboy: That may be one of the shortest answers anyone ever got from Sparky Anderson. What with all the quotes you've given the press and some of the color commentary you've done on radio, you have the reputation of being the Casey Stengel of the Eighties. Are you aware of that?

[A] Anderson: Well, I talk a lot, and I enjoy it. I enjoy kibitzin' with the writers. And I have very poor English, and there's no use tryin' to hide it. I don't make up any of my English, if you could call it that; it's natural and I wish I could say that I make it up. And I wish I could say that the words I use are made up, but that's just the way I talk. I've seen writers knock me because they say the way I talk is bad for kids to hear, but I don't agree. I think the way you speak, as long as you speak from your heart--I just don't know another way to deal with things, and a lot of times I get in a lot of trouble because I do that, but that's the only way I know to talk. It's not somethin' phony or made up.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of trouble?

[A] Anderson: Well, I tend to overly brag on a young player, and when he don't do it the way you said he would, it's gonna be your hide. I just get myself in more trouble with my big mouth than anybody else gets me in. I just get so enthusiastic, and I know I've gotta calm it down, but when I try to calm it down, I'm just not me. So which is better? I don't know. I just think I have to be me. It's scary--when I read myself praisin' a player in the papers, I think, Oh, my God, how did I ever say that?

[A] But about people comparing me with Casey Stengel, you know, I got to see him a bit at ceremonial dinners and stuff in his later years, but there was one I'll never forget. It was at a New York sportswriters' dinner--it was so great. He was gonna present Don Larsen with some kind of award for being the only guy in history to pitch a "perfect game" in the world series. It's a big dinner, and lots of people are there to honor Larsen for one of the greatest feats ever done. So the trophy is up there, Stengel goes up to the stage, he spots Billy Martin and Frankie Frisch----

[Q] Playboy: The famous Fordham Flash from the Thirties----

[A] Anderson: Yeah, and I was sittin' next to Casey at the dinner, and Casey spots Billy in front--he always loved Billy--anyway, Casey just started yappin' away about this (continued on page 130)Sparky Anderson(continued from page 126) young whippersnapper Billy Martin and goin' on about the days he played with Frankie Frisch and on and on, and the crowd is breakin' up. Larsen is standin' there, waiting to be introduced, and Casey just keeps talkin'. He stops talkin', he goes and sits down. He has not even mentioned Larsen, who is standin' behind him; he hasn't given Larsen nothin'. The m.c., he didn't know what to do. He waited a few seconds, jumped up and got the trophy and handed it to Larsen, and the house just came down.

[A] That night, Casey really taught me somethin'. The kids there just lined up to get his autograph. What he does is sign the autographs and says to each of 'em, "OK, all you kiddies, go back to your table; ol' Casey is gonna have a salad, and when you see him finish his salad, you can come back." They all came back, and he says, "OK, all you kids go sit down again, because ol' Casey is gonna have some dinner, and when you see him get done with the dinner, you come back." They came back--he said, "OK, when you see ol' Case finish with his dessert, then you come back."

[Q] Playboy: What did that teach you?

[A] Anderson: This man was at least 80 years old, and he handled those kids like a dream, and every one of those kids will remember that night for the rest of their lives, until they get to be 80 years old. I guarantee that. That was so important--it taught me that those kids felt that way about meeting a baseball hero, and since I've been a major-league manager, I've always tried to make myself available to kids, because it means so much to them. A manager always has to do lots of off-season promotion for the team, and after all the demands of last year, I'm definitely gonna cut down that way--but I'll always do stuff to help kids. I see stuff in the papers from time to time--"What's so important about baseball, anyway?"----

[Q] Playboy: What is?

[A] Anderson: Really, it is the kids. They teach ya in school that America is the only country in the world where any kid, no matter what his background, can grow up to be President of the United States. And that's true--but there's only one President for every four years, and there's room for 25 people on every major-league club, every year. I guess it's the idea of hope. You may not become President, but if you work hard enough, maybe you can play major-league baseball. Maybe you can be a star. At least you can try. Baseball gives you a chance to start.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk a bit about the changes in the modern game--baseball in the Eighties. For instance, the spitball has been banned for a long time, but in recent years certain pitchers have become famous for throwing a pretty moist ball.

[A] Anderson: I know that.

[Q] Playboy: We know you know that. Your pitching coach for the past five years, Roger Craig, managed the San Diego Padres when the king of the spitball, Gaylord Perry, was his lead pitcher. What we're asking is, Why try to hide it when so many pitchers throw it today? Should it become legal again after all these years?

[A] Anderson: I don't think there's anything wrong with the spitball. To me, it's no different than if a guy has a good fast ball or a good curve ball or a good slider. I just don't think many guys throw it anymore. I think the biggest danger is not to the batter but the pitcher--I'll tell you why. You're so susceptible to hurting your elbow and shoulder, because the ball is slippery and the way you have to hold on to it, you run into a lot of risk of hurting your arm. I'm not sayin' that guys don't throw it today, but I don't agree that it's come back all that much. I think we're at the lowest point in history for the spitter.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever manage pitchers who threw the spitter?

[A] Anderson: A couple, but I ain't about to tell you who. I'm just not the kiss-and-tell type. They didn't stay with it very long--I don't think many guys do. Don Drysdale, for instance, could throw one pretty good.

[Q] Playboy: In some circles, he was known as Wetsdale. But you're really not going to tell us where Perry hid the grease that helped him win 300 games?

[A] Anderson: Let's just say that that's his business and none of mine and none of yours. Besides, you couldn't get it out of me if you tried. It ain't important, anyway--I think things go in fads, and sometimes they work. Split-fingered fast ball is the latest fad for pitchers.

[Q] Playboy: It sure was a good fad for your pitchers last year. They used it a lot, with great success.

[A] Anderson: Yeah, but for quite a while there was the knuckle-ball fad. The Niekro brothers are about the only ones around who use it. Me, myself, I always love to see a guy who throws hard. I've always been a great believer in firepower. I've also always been a great fan of a curve ball, a pitch that seems to be goin' out of business.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't the ability to hit a curve ball always the test of a major-league batter? The reason he even entered the major leagues--he could hit a curve ball?

[A] Anderson: Absolutely. But things have changed. Pitchers realize these days that it takes a big bite out of their arm--and their arm is where the money is--to have to twist the arm and the body so much to throw a curve ball. Not too many pitchers get a good break on a real good curve ball anymore--it's a lot easier to get a break out of a slider, a lot less strain on the arm. But you're right--a curve ball used to be meat and potatoes for a successful pitcher. If I ever find a pitcher who has heat, a good curve and a slider, I might seriously consider marryin' him--or at least proposin'. [Laughs] Please don't tell my wife, though.

[Q] Playboy: Can't the art of throwing a curve ball still be taught?

[A] Anderson: Well, I think it can still be taught. You gotta get on top of it, but it's easier for the pitchers to control the slider. Ted Williams, just about the best guy with the bat who ever played the game, says that when the slider came into the game, it was the toughest pitch he ever had to swing at. A slider, when it works, is wonderful, but pitchers sure hang a lot of 'em. The ball becomes a sittin' duck for a good hitter--boom, the ball is gone.

[Q] Playboy: Back when players and managers had to take off-season jobs to pay the rent, you worked as a car salesman. How did you do?

[A] Anderson: Well, I worked for a bunch of dealerships in Southern California for seven years, but [long pause] I really couldn't sell cars. I tried to, but I wasn't what they call a "closer." The closer's the guy who wants to get ya in there and close the deal, and I was never good at that.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Anderson: Well, I'd have a guy come in to fill out the papers to finance the purchase, and when I could tell he didn't make enough money to handle the payments--I'd tell him. I'd tell him, "You can't handle this." That ain't a good way to sell cars. I didn't really have my heart in it, anyway--it was just a winter job. Maybe if I had to do it for a living, I would have got more enthusiastic about it.

[Q] Playboy: Did that experience teach you anything about dealing with baseball and baseball players?

[A] Anderson: Well, I know one thing: They always talk about the car dealers' bein' a little shady. I found the people who came through the door were the shadiest--all the gimmicks they had! You learn the different molds people come in, baseball players included. Players might have different faces, but you'll always have four or five guys who are exactly the same in one personality. Another four or five who are the same in another personality. I think you always end up with four or five different personality types on the team.

[Q] Playboy: Describe them.

(continued on page 198) Sparky Anderson(continued from page 130)

[A] Anderson: Well, you're gonna have guys who test ya--just out of the fun of it. It's another part of the game to them. And you have guys who are hard, hard losers. You have guys who don't like to lose, but if they lose, it's not life and death to them. Then you'll have a guy who's real scared and apprehensive, who's worried that he won't make it, won't stay on the team--sometimes guys with lots of ability are that way. And then you have the guy who won't give ya no trouble for nothin'--he's just there to play. I really enjoy guys like that. Those are the guys who ain't in the game to please the manager, they're there to please themselves. A guy like Pete Rose. Then there's another kind of guy who's what I call an "in-between" guy--he wants to be a star, but he's not and has a hang-up about it; he always feels like so-and-so is getting a little better treatment than him. Nothin' pleases him.

[Q] Playboy: One of your stars at Cincinnati, Joe Morgan, described you as streetsmart. What did he mean by that?

[A] Anderson: [Laughs] For one thing, it means I don't have no school smarts. But I think what Joe meant by that is that I do understand guys. I don't think I've ever been tricked by too many guys. They might think they're tricking me, and a lot of times I let 'em think they've tricked me for the simple reason that that's the best way to handle him, instead of undressing him--I've found out that sometimes if you let him keep his clothes on, if he thinks he's trickin' you, it's fine, but if you show him he's not trickin' you, then he's exposed, and if he's exposed, he's not worth a damn. Let him live in that world.

[A] I make no claim to genius, but I do think I understand people. I understand their needs; I understand why some guys have to lie, why some guys have to alibi--because that's the only way they can survive. They can't survive by doing everything in the right way; they just can't survive that way. And if they can't survive that way, then I say let 'em survive the other way as long as they can help ya win.

[Q] Playboy: You keep saying you regret not having a formal education--but from the way you describe handling players, some might say you've earned a degree in day-to-day psychology.

[A] Anderson: I dunno 'bout that. A lot of times I get confused day to day. I ask myself, "What the hell is goin' on?" But then sometimes when that feeling happens, you work it out in your head and everything just falls into line. I'm just one of those guys who always dream things will get better and better, and when it don't, I blame myself. That's the walkin'-eagle thing--I just figure that no matter how full of shit you are, you just gotta keep talkin', because if you don't keep talkin', you don't come up with no ideas.

[Q] Playboy: Is lying a part of your job?

[A] Anderson: Jeez, why do you ask me that?

[Q] Playboy: When People published its annual list of the 25 most intriguing personalities in America last December, you were one of them. According to People, you're one of the great movers and shakers for 1985----

[A] Anderson: I saw that--I suppose I beat out some blonde movie star to make the list, but what's the point?

[Q] Playboy: This--to quote from your People piece: "In this business, I have to lie an awful lot. I'm not very honest with the press with all their questions, because it's part of the way things are with this game." Are you being less than honest with us?

[A] Anderson: Nah, I wouldn't lie to you. All I was tryin' to say was that if I had to tell the real truth about every player after every game to every reporter who came around, I'd hurt my players. I prefer to talk to my players individually when they've done something wrong. If the player don't get the sign to bunt when I say bunt, I'm not gonna yell at him in the newspapers because he missed the sign. I'll talk to the player myself about it--I know he feels bad enough already. I'm not about to put that player in the paper to take me off the hook. The player already messed up--I know it, he knows it. The one thing I don't know yet--did he mess up on purpose? Once I get done talkin' to him, I'm gonna have a chance to figure it out. When you get to know your players, you generally can figure it out--you get to read their eyes and everything else. When I read a manager sayin' in the paper that so-and-so was supposed to bunt and he missed, I don't like it.

[A] Anyway, what I meant when I told People about lyin' was just not tellin' the truth about a player who's messed up. But when you're interviewed enough, no matter how you do it, you're gonna be nailed, because there's things that you say that the reporters don't really understand. Fans, too. It's just like religion, that way. I believe in the Big Guy----

[Q] Playboy: Who's the Big Guy?

[A] Anderson: You know, God; and honest to God, I must have had eight or ten Bibles sent to me last year, because everybody wants you to get into this religion thing. No matter what you do, if you're interviewed, you are gonna say somethin' that ticks somebody off the wrong way.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about religion for a minute. You're Catholic----

[A] Anderson: I am now; I wasn't Catholic most of my life. I was a Methodist when I started playing baseball in 1953. I couldn't go to a Methodist church, because they had services at 11 o'clock Sunday morning, and baseball players have to be in the ball park by then. So I started goin' to church with the Catholic guys, and I just did and did and did and I was baptized in 1964--nobody else in my family is Catholic, but to me, it's neither here nor there. I don't look at religion as Jewish or Catholic or Protestant--whatever fits you, do it. Bein' a Catholic, I'm able to go to church on Sundays and not have to miss Mass. I take that back--I miss my share of Mass. But it's funny--the moment you say somethin' about religion, whammo, God Almighty. I remember one time, back when I was coachin' in the minor leagues in Atlanta, I had this one pitcher with bad arm trouble who needed surgery. After a few hours, the surgeon came out and said everything was a success. I was there, a couple of his friends were there and a sportswriter was there. One of his friends said to me, "You're so lucky that God gave you back your pitcher's arm." I told that guy, "Don't be thinkin' about God; think about the doctor who performed the operation." That writer wrote about the exchange and, man, you wouldn't believe the negative letters I got on just that one remark--how sacrilegious I was, that kind of stuff. All I was tryin' to say was that if God had anything to do with that pitcher's arm, there wouldn't have been no problem to start with. So many baseball teams have their "God squads" these days--players who after they hit a home run credit God with their good swing. I think that's a ridiculous notion. Like, "God made me hit that home run." You hear that a lot these days. I look at it this way: If God let you hit a home run last time up, then who struck you out next time at bat?

[Q] Playboy: Do you participate in the Baseball Chapels that have become a big part of baseball life, where players are preached to by local preachers in whatever city they're playing?

[A] Anderson: Yeah, normally I'll go, because I figure if bein' there helps, why not? And I've heard some real good speakers. I've also heard some guys who after I walk out I'm more confused than when I walked in. I just take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt, I really do. I'll listen, but then I'll make up my own mind on things, and I'm gonna make my own mistakes anyway, I know that. I think we change, too--one month we'll be one way, the next month we'll be another. I said it before: When my team is losin', I ain't a talkative person. And when we're winnin', I'm the biggest front runner in the world. When I'm goin' good, man, I'm chirpin'. When I'm not goin' good, I keep my mouth shut. Or I try to, at least. [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: Do you enjoy being a celebrity?

[A] Anderson: No. That part of baseball is hard for me to accept. The one thing people don't know about me is that I am shy. I've always been shy. I was shy when I was in school, and I'm shy when I'm outa my element. The only time I am ever outgoin' is when you're in my territory and I have command of it. I've been livin' in Thousand Oaks for about 19 years, and I'm basically very shy when I'm home. No way at home do I ever do anything that's Sparky Anderson. Here, I'm George, and he and Sparky are two different people.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get tagged as Sparky?

[A] Anderson: There was a radio announcer in Fort Worth in my third year of pro ball. I guess I spent a whole lot of time arguing with umpires, and this announcer would say, "The sparks are really flyin' out there." Eventually, he'd just say when I came up to the plate, "Here's old Sparky again." The press picked it up, and the name just stuck to me. I was kinda embarrassed--it took me a long time to get used to it. In fact, my first couple of years at Cincinnati, I'd sign my autographs George Anderson, but the Reds' PR department got on my case and told me that nobody knows who George Anderson is, so I finally got used to it and started signing Sparky. And now I'm comfortable about bein' Sparky in my territory, baseball; but out of my territory, it don't work. My bein' basically shy, that's somethin' nobody knows; I don't talk about it. I really am two different people.

[Q] Playboy: There are more than a few umpires who don't think you're shy----

[A] Anderson: That's the Sparky me.

[Q] Playboy: Do fewer sparks fly today when you protest an umpire's decision?

[A] Anderson: I guess I can get carried away, but I just want the umpires to admit that in the past two years--I'll even go beyond that; let's say the past five years--I've come to learn that umpires are just doin' a job. I argue very little. I was thrown out of the game one time last year----

[Q] Playboy: A well-publicized incident on national television----

[A] Anderson: I just think I've finally grown up to the point where I understand that there's no way that there's any umpire out there who's tryin' to stick it to ya. Before, it was so important to me that they admit they were wrong, and I'd keep carpin' until they admitted it. The way I think now, nobody should have to admit to you that he's wrong. I think that's a part of my growin' up--don't go to the point with an umpire, don't expose him. Just like a player--don't expose the guy. After I got thrown out of the game last year, I looked at the replays and realized I was wrong and the umpire was right--and I apologized to him.

[Q] Playboy: A rare gesture in baseball, no?

[A] Anderson: Maybe so, but I saw I was wrong. And I've just learned that, by God, they're out there tryin' to do a job, tryin' to make a livin', like everyone else. Even though sometimes when you get mad and start screamin' at them and they start screamin' back, I know, now, that they're really doin' their job. Earl Weaver says he pushes on the umpire as a tactic--and as a tactic, I guess it's an OK tool. I just get mad. I usually don't say nothin', but I really do get angry inside, and once in a while, I just explode, like I did that time last year. I guess part of my nature, too, is to be a worrywart. Take this Playboy Interview. I was pretty worried there.

[Q] Playboy: What worried you about it?

[A] Anderson: Well, the way I was brought up, this is kinda hanky-panky business, Playboy. I was pretty scared to death about doin' it. At least I didn't have to be the centerfold. [Laughs] Maybe I'll subscribe--people tell me there's a lot of good jokes and stories inside.

[Q] Playboy: What else worries you?

[A] Anderson: Well, you were talkin' about Earl Weaver once askin' about how much I made. I hope he made more than me--that's fine. If that gives a guy more strength, if he needs it, more power to him. I want my money to spend it on my children--I probably spent more money on my children than any manager in the business. I'd rather give them things than get them myself. I don't want to buy no Mercedes--I have an old Chrysler Le Baron, and it's the only car I have. I don't see no sense in havin' two cars--I'm gone seven months of the year, and the Tigers give me a car when I'm on the road anyway. I've had this car two years, I've got 15,000 miles on it, and--it's not money. When you get up to certain figures, I can't understand why it makes a difference to a ballplayer if he makes $700,000 or $1,000,000 a year, because the Government takes half of it anyway. So what're you gonna do with the extra $300,000 you make--eat it? If ya enjoy eatin', I can see it, but I know this: When ya go, ya can't take it with ya. I know this, too: Anybody in the game today, and I don't say it like I'm the best manager in the world--but there's nobody in the game today who's won as much as I have. Now, that's a fact; you could look it up. I've been in it the longest; I've got the most wins. So if you put those two facts together, I should be the highest paid--if you want to look at it that way. There are guys who've won a lot less than me makin' more than me, and I just don't care about it. It's where you enjoy yourself.

[Q] Playboy: What if another team offered you double what you're making now?

[A] Anderson: I love Detroit, I love where I'm workin', but there are three or four places that, if they gave me double, I might consider.

[Q] Playboy: Where?

[A] Anderson: Of course I'm not gonna tell ya, but there's just about no way I'm gonna leave Detroit. I get paid now what I want--and I have a job where I don't have to call up my bosses every night and report on the team's performance. Detroit is real different that way. They don't bother me--I talk to 'em all the time, but they're not callin' me in the middle of the night. I call 'em when I get up in the mornin' when I'm on the road--but I don't have to. It ain't a thing where if I don't, I'll get bawled out for it. It's pretty rare to have a job like the one I have. I know I keep sayin' it, but it's true. The biggest break I ever got in the world was to be a part of major-league ball. That's for sure. And that will be with me forever.

"I don't have no school smarts, but I do understand guys. I don't think I've been tricked by too many guys."

"You're dealin' with athletes who are in the prime of their life, and life on the road makes'em restless."

"If I ever find a pitcher who has heat, a good curve and a slider, I might consider marryin' him."

"If the player misses the sign, I'm not gonna yell at him in the newspapers. He feels bad enough already."