Sparky Anderson looks at a display honoring the '75-'76 Reds at the Baseball Hall of Fame. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

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        COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Sparky Anderson has set the table for teaching. The porcelain pitcher of cream is the baserunner. The silver spoon is Johnny Bench.

        The pitcher of cream will never reach the plate. It is blocked by a spoon that won't be budged. The ballplayer who ran into Bench's shinguards typically stopped in his tracks. Sometimes, like a pitcher of cream, he would take a bad spill.

        “Ozzie Smith never saw the day he could play shortstop better than Bench could catch,” Anderson says Tuesday afternoon. “We tried to teach our catchers to make the tag the way Bench did, and they couldn't do it.”

        The manager of the Big Red Machine — newly immortal, ever grounded — arrived at the Baseball Hall of Fame for his pre-induction orientation Tuesday morning. Having deliberately avoided the museum prior to his election, he took the tour as a first-time visitor, gawking at the exhibits, learning the layout.

        Yet in a larger sense, Sparky Anderson has always known his place. He understood that his success stemmed in large part from the excellence of others: Bench and Joe Morgan and Tony Perez and Pete Rose in Cincinnati; Jack Morris and Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker in Detroit. He is preparing a speech for the July 23 Hall of Fame induction ceremonies that will go light on personal pronouns and heavy on praise.

        “Every morning I go back over it,” Anderson says. “I ask, "How could this have happened?' A lot of people were put on this earth to take me there.”

        By the time his tour is finished Tuesday, and he is headed home to California, Anderson has lauded Bench and Morgan and Perez and lamented that Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey Sr., Morris, Trammell and Whitaker have not received more Hall of Fame votes. He gets in a plug for George Foster's power and goes out of his way to cite the overlooked contributions Chet Lemon made to the Tigers. He is so busy giving credit that he has no time to take any.

        Only Connie Mack and John McGraw won more games than George Lee Anderson, and no one else has managed World Series champions in both leagues. Captain Hook's election to the baseball shrine was as certain as his grammar is shaky, yet he has been humbled by baseball's most exalted honor, and is slightly cowed by the company he will soon be keeping.

        “I'm not intimidated by Bench and Morgan,” he says, “but I am because they've been in so long.”

        “A lot of people say the U.S. Senate is the most exclusive club in the world,” Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey tells him. “But it's not. There are only 58 living Hall of Famers. And

        you never have to run for re-election.”

        They are standing in the center of the Hall of Fame library, surrounded by museum staff munching on bagels. It is a few minutes after 8 a.m., and already Anderson is in high gear. At 66, his age has finally caught up with his white hair and craggy face, but he is remarkably trim and apparently tireless. He has recovered from a stroke with newfound resolve, restricting his diet and retiring his pipe. “I've cut out everything,” he claims.

        His enthusiasm, happily, is intact.

        Entering the Hall of Fame gallery, where his plaque will be hung, Anderson produces a plastic sandwich bag bearing an autographed baseball. It is, he says, the only baseball ever signed by Pope John Paul II. He hands it to curator Ted Spencer for safekeeping.

        “I didn't want it in my house,” he explains, “because if my kids got down-and-out they might take it in to the memorabilia shop.”

        Pausing before a Negro Leagues exhibit, Anderson recalls watching Satchel Paige beat Bob Feller, 1-0, during a barnstorming tour of California.

        “Going home, my daddy said, "You might have seen the best,'” he says.

        Roaming the sprawling, labyrinthine museum, Anderson approaches strangers as if he were a favorite uncle. Posing for a picture with two boys sporting Boston Red Sox caps, he teases them that their team must “Wait till next year.” He then tells them Boston has the best fans in baseball.

        Kevin Harrington, age 10, is asked what he knows about the man he has just met.

        “He was a great baseball player,” he says.

        Well, no.

        Sparky Anderson played only the 1959 season in the major leagues, and needed a fast finish to raise his batting average to .218. A ledger containing his day-by-day statistics from that season lay open on a conference table for inspection.

        “I got a couple of three-hit games?” Anderson asks, astonished. “When? Who did I face?”

        He was a low-profile coach with the nearly invisible San Diego Padres when Bob Howsam tapped him to take over the Reds in 1970. He would win four pennants and two World Series before Dick Wagner fired him following the 1978 season. Anderson resurfaced the following year in Detroit, where he would win a third world title in 1984.

        He managed by feel more than flow charts, defying convention, trusting conviction. He changed pitchers as often and as abruptly as some men change TV stations. If an opposing hitter frightened him, Anderson would strive to neutralize his bat. He once angered Ken Griffey Jr. by walking him seven times during a three-game series with Seattle, but won all three games.

        “I walked Willie McCovey so many times,” he says, “he could have walked to the moon on all those walks.” Anderson was masterful at massaging large egos — which abounded in the Reds' clubhouse during the 1970s — and he was even better at manipulating matchups late in the game.

        “It's a lot like a chess game,” Bench says in a video prepared for Anderson's induction, “and Sparky was a chess master.”

        Tuesday, he is a tourist, full of curiosity and awe. In the museum archives, Anderson dons a pair of protective white gloves before handling a battered mitt that once belonged to Ty Cobb. He then makes a fist and pounds it softly into the pocket. Though his eyes dance mischievously, his voice resonates with reverence.

        “Ty Cobb,” he says. “Now, that cat could do it all.”

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