Sparky Anderson | ZOOM |

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        A major reason why Sparky Anderson will be wearing a Reds cap when he is inducted Sunday into the Baseball Hall of Fame — instead of a cap representing Detroit, where he spent twice as many years — is because the Reds gave him his chance.

        Specifically, Reds general manager Bob Howsam gave him his chance.

        Actually, Howsam gave Anderson three chances.

        Howsam and Anderson had a considerable history that pre-dated Howsam's hiring of Anderson to manage the Reds in 1970.

        The first two chances came in the minor leagues, once with the St. Louis Car dinals (1965) and once with the Reds (1968).

        Charlie Dressen — who had been Anderson's manager in Toronto during Sparky's playing days — liked Anderson's inquisitive mind and was instrumental in getting him named manager of the Toronto club in 1964.

        Anderson thought he was ready for it, but he proved to be too much of a hothead. Toronto let him go at the end of the season.

HALL OF FAME WEEK

The Enquirer is running a weeklong series of Hall of Fame stories leading to next Sunday's inductions:   • Sunday: Bid McPhee didn't need a glove most of his career.   • Today: How Sparky Anderson became Reds manager   • Tuesday: How Marty Brennaman became Reds broadcaster   • Wednesday: How Tony Perez went from cuba to the Reds system   • Thursday: How Anderson became “Captain Hook.”   • Friday: Brennaman's broadcasting style is sharp-edged   • Saturday: Perez's needle wove Big Red Machine fabric   • Next Sunday: Special coverage on each of the Reds' inductees.   • Hall of Fame travelers better act fast

        Early in 1965, when the manager of the Rock Hill, S.C., team in the St. Louis Cardinals organization quit, then-Cardinals GM Howsam was scrambling to find somebody to replace him.

        Howsam called an associate, Dick Walsh of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who recommended Anderson. Sparky had been raised as a player in the highly regarded Dodgers organization before being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. Anderson's association with Howsam began and almost ended in 1965 at Rock Hill. Sparky had a run-in with an umpire in 1965 that could have cost him a chance of ever managing again.

        Anderson has never grown tired of telling the story, because he learned so much from it. He was a hot-tempered 30-year-old manager in Rock Hill, and he never backed down from a verbal confrontation with an umpire. But he had one particularly ugly confrontation in 1965 that formed the basis for his future behavior.

        Longtime Reds fans can still remember Sparky Anderson, in his Riverfront Stadium days, coming out of the dugout with his hands in his back pockets on route to questioning an umpire's call.

        It all stems back to the incident in Rock Hill in 1965.

        “I went out on the field and started arguing with the umpire,” Anderson recalled. “The ump bumped me. Big guy, didn't mean to do, it, just an accident. Well I was really wound up, and all I needed was something like that to set me off.”

        Anderson jammed his hands up near the umpire's chest to try to get a grip on him so he could wrestle him to the ground. Fortunately, his team hoisted him off the ump, but not before Anderson had created quite a scene.

        “I figured I was done,” Anderson recalled. “No, I knew I was done. For at least the rest of the year and maybe forever. I'm sitting there, thinkin' all this, and I hear this voice, "Sparky.'”

SPARKY HIGHLIGHTS | ZOOM |

• Career record: 26 years (1970-78 Cincinnati, 1979-95 Detroit), 2,194-1,834 (.545).   • Led Cincinnati to an 863-586 record, five NL West titles, four pennants and two World Series (1975-76) titles.   • Named NL Manager of the Year (1972, '75) and AL Manager of the Year (1984, '87).   • Is the only manager to win a World Series in both leagues (1975-76 Cincinnati; 1984, Detroit), the only manager to lead two franchises in victories (863, Cincinnati; 1,331, Detroit).   • Victory total is third-highest behind Connie Mack (3,731) and John McGraw (2,763).

        Well, who do you think it was?

        It was the umpire. He asked Sparky if they could talk, and, of course, Sparky said yes. But he had no idea what was coming.

        To this day, Sparky can recall the umpire's words to him.

        I didn't mean to bump you. And I won't deny that I did. But here's what we're gonna do. You got run (ejected) for bad language. That's the truth of it, and that's how I'm going to report it. Everything else came after I bumped you. You don't deserve a long suspension, and I'm not going to report it in such a way that you get one.

        “He saved my career,” Sparky remembered. “I never forgot it. I said to myself, right then and there, that I would never let something like that happen again.”

        That incident changed him — “deeply,” Anderson said.

        He knew he had received a reprieve that may have saved his career.

        Howsam was a person who always had his antennae up. He was always trying to detect ballplayers and coaches and potential front-office hires who had character and were determined to get the most out of their abilities and those of others. He found this quality in Anderson. A year after Howsam took over as Reds general manager in January 1967, he hired Anderson from the Cardinals organization to manage the Reds' Double-A Asheville (N.C.) franchise.

        At Asheville in 1968, Anderson won his fourth minor-league pennant in as many seasons.

        Before the 1969 season, San Diego manager Preston Gomez made a Padres coaching offer to his buddy, the 34-year-old Anderson, who by now wanted to coach in the big leagues.

        The Reds' brass asked their big-league manager, Dave Bristol, if he could make room on his big-league staff for Anderson. Bristol liked the staff he had. The Reds' brass didn't interfere.

        The Reds' Chief Bender told Anderson the Reds hoped to get him back from San Diego someday and wished him well.

        But, as Bender would note years later, he had no idea if the Reds would ever get Sparky back.

        Anderson coached a year at third base for the Padres. Then Lefty Phillips, his long time mentor from his high school days who was now the manager of the California Angels, offered Anderson a coaching job on the Angels' staff. Anderson couldn't resist.

        On the morning of Oct.8, 1969, Anderson was headed to the Angels' office to discuss a contract. It was announced on the radio that the Reds had fired Dave Bristol as their manager.

        “Too bad,” Anderson remembers thinking to himself.

        Anderson didn't give even a passing thought to getting the Reds job.

        “What reason would I have to think in terms of managing a big-league club at that stage?” Anderson said.

        He was in the office of Angels general manager Dick Walsh — yes, the same Dick Walsh who had first recommended Anderson to Howsam in 1965 — when the phone rang.

        It was Reds general manager Bob Howsam.

        “Two people you know, Lefty Phillips and Sparky Anderson, are sitting across from me,” Walsh told Howsam.

        “That's a funny coincidence,” Howsam said. “"What I'm calling you about is permission to discuss the managing job here (Cincinnati) with Anderson.”

        Howsam was eager to hire a manager before the 1969 World Series began. He had already held a meeting in Cincinnati of his top scouts and assistants. The late Reds superscout, Ray Shore, would later say that he believed Howsam's top choice for the Reds job was Charlie Metro, but Metro had taken the job as the Kansas City Royals manager the day before. Reds publicity director, Tom Seeberg, was the first person to suggest to Howsam that he hire “Georgie” Anderson, his old high school buddy, to replace Bristol.

        Howsam asked Seeberg what he thought Anderson would contribute to the job.

        “He knows the system,” Seeberg said. “He pays close attention to details and fundamentals. He's good with young players.”

        Howsam liked the idea but kept it to himself as he went around the table soliciting other opinions. There were some dissenters, those who thought Howsam would be sticking his neck out too far with Anderson. Howsam had been in the Reds job for only three years.

        But Howsam liked Anderson, who was good at leading players down the right path. And Anderson was a stickler for fundamentals, something Howsam felt the Reds needed.

        On the morning of Oct. 9, 1969 — the day the Reds introduced their new manager at a news conference — the headline in The Enquirer read: Sparky Who?

        Soon after the jet carrying Sparky touched down at Greater Cincinnati Airport, Anderson was on the phone with George Scherger, his first professional manager in Santa Barbara 17 years ago.

        Scherger accepted the job as bench coach. Anderson's next call was to Pete Rose. Anderson wanted him to be the Reds captain.

        “Sparky, anything you want done, let me know,” Rose answered. “I'll go along with anything that's reasonable, and so will the other guys.”

        Anderson told Rose he wanted the Reds players to wear suit jackets on the road, wanted them to have relatively closely cropped hair and wanted them to portray a big-league image.

        “Done,” Rose responded. “If you've got me and Johnny Bench on your side, you're fine.”

        In that one phone call to Rose, the Reds' brass would later note, Anderson exhibited his strongest quality: He was always thinking ahead of how he could get the best out of people in such a way that it also meant bringing out the best for the team.

        It was a trait of which Howsam was well aware.

        It was an integral reason for why Howsam hired Sparky Who? 30 years ago to manage a team that would soon be living up to its nickname, “The Big Red Machine.”

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