Sparky on Winning Titles: ‘Never Defend; Attack Every Day’

The ego of Sparky Anderson is such that he can say his first rule of managing is not to compete with his players. Then he can say, “The last five years, I am really a good manager.”

There is no contradiction.

His credentials speak for themselves. He is the 10th-winningest manager in history and his .577 percentage is eighth-highest; he is the only manager to win a World Series in each league. And he is in first place by three games with this Tigers team.

Of course, he has an ego, which is how he understands where to pat his players. “If Dave Winfield was my player, I’d do like this,” he said, slinking behind a pillar in his office. He sauntered past and casually gave a pat on the thigh. “You’re doing a hell of a job,” he said. “I’d do it just like that.

“I do it all the time with Lou Whitaker. Some guys don’t like conversation; they may like for you to touch them.”

What Anderson knows how to do better than anybody is create an atmosphere on his team. He understands it’s a long season and he understands the insecurities of the players over the long season. Being able to deal with those concepts immediately makes him an uncommon manager and probably would make it impossible for him to work for George Steinbrenner.

He called attention to a comment by Oakland pitcher Dave Stewart on the A’s slump: “Well, we’re still in first place and the pressure is on them.” Anderson grunted and took an aromatic puff on his pipe.

“I said to myself, ‘It’s June 28 and you’re saying the pressure is on them. Three months to go and you’re thinking pressure? What that does is put the pressure on your team.”

He knows pennants aren’t won in June; they may be lost in June, but they aren’t won until September, and the manager or owner who doesn’t understand that dooms himself--unless he has what Anderson identifies as “a mortal lock.”

“Never defend; attack every day,” he said. “Then it’s all in your hands. If we back into the fort, they’ll burn us out.” He recalled how the 1969 Cubs got into first place “and they couldn’t catch the ball; it was awful.” They were, he said, “defending.” That all happened before Sparky Anderson ever saw the big leagues as a manager, but he was studying. In 18 seasons as a manager, he has won five pennants with the Reds and two with the Tigers.

“The first 14 years,” he said, “if I could change one thing, I’d like to go back from 1984 and manage like I have the last four.” He learned that the best thing a manager can do is create an atmosphere where players can flourish.

“Before,” he said, citing those early years when he was still the George Anderson who had one season as an inadequate Philadelphia second baseman, “I was all the time thinking--like a player--I can do this or I can do that. What you want to do is, whatever problems they have, you solve them. If you have problems, leave them home and let your wife deal with them.

“Then if they’re good enough to win, they’ll win. Or if they’re good enough to finish third, they’ll finish third. I don’t think we would have won more, but I’d have enjoyed more and they would have enjoyed more.”

He won with the Reds when the Reds should have won, which is not a slander. “There’s no way in God’s world I can make a team win,” he said. “The secret is to let them win if they want to. Jeez, don’t stop them.”

Anderson is 54 years old and doesn’t look a year older than he did in 1970, when he first joined the Reds of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez. Actually, he looked 54 back then. He has bridged the generation gap that says a 54-year-old is too old to understand a baseball team, which is always 26.

For one thing, he is a talking manager. He realizes that if he isn’t talking to the press, the press will be talking to a player who may be squirming. So Anderson will be especially approachable after a loss.

He is an all-star gossip. He speaks to Rose and he knows Marge Schott’s moods; he counseled Morgan when Houston wanted him to manage, and he was shocked at Morgan’s divorce. “Oh, my God,” he said, “do I love Gloria.”

But he’d bet now that Morgan has his business in order, and that Morgan will be offered and will take a manager’s job this winter.

And Anderson is willing to hold the hand of those players who need their hands held. “When I was younger, I didn’t see that,” he said. “Younger guys I had never should have been left out there alone.

“Today they want you to show them, not tell them. You take a player today and all he wants you to do is talk to him. They’re so confused.”

It’s not so difficult; all it takes is common sense and uncommon sensitivity. Unlike Chuck Tanner, who lost his credibility, Anderson has stopped saying things like nominating Don Gullett for the Hall of Fame in his second season. But in his office in Detroit, Anderson keeps a shovel handy, in case “it” gets too deep. He says the Mets should win, and about the Yankees, he said, “I know about the pitching, but when you look at this club, that’s a ballclub.”

That’s his way of subtly shifting the burden. But he lost Lance Parrish last season and Kirk Gibson before this season. They’ll probably be National League All-Stars. And Sparky has reassembled the remaining parts in first place.

“People ask me how and I don’t know,” he said with his biggest smile. The players, of course, have done it. “I never have a thought about me.”

He doesn’t manage to make himself look good. If he lets his players win, they’ll make him look good. “If you don’t have success,” he said, “nobody asks you anything.”

If his credentials didn’t speak for themselves, he would. If he didn’t win, he wouldn’t have anybody to tell he had no ego involved. He knows how to keep it out of the way.