Goodbye Sparky Anderson And Thank You

From the Zola System

alexzola

Location: New York, New York, USA
Birthday: January 30

Bio: I grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in the Zola System, my father’s philosophy of life. He taught my brothers and me the basic life skills: how to run a street hustle, perpetrate a con or recognize when you were being hustled or conned; information we needed so we could feed our families if another Hitler came to power. My father Aron Zola was a Romanian Jew, a holocaust survivor, a black marketeer, a gun runner, a successful entrepreneur, a true citizen of Detroit. When I was 18, I rebelled against the Zola System and moved to New York City. I was fascinated with cultural heroes – Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson and the aesthetic bohemian artist lifestyle that, in my naivete, I thought they lived. Now I see they were working their own hustles on the public, just like the Old Man. Even the Manhattan dating scene runs on the Zola System. To paraphrase Mark Twain, now that the Old Man is dead, I’m shocked how much he learned. I wrote reviews for SPIN, an unpublished brunch guide for New York City, covered the death penalty, reviewed books for the New York Law Journal and profiled sports stars for the Jewish Forward. I have two crime novels and a bartenders guide to New York City that I am trying to sell. After dabbling in so many genres, I finally realized I’d been running from my subject: my father and the Zola System. The Old Man is gone now and I am his eldest son carrying on as he wanted me to do. This was not supposed to happen.

MY RECENT POSTS

Incinerating Chivalry
May 15, 2012 04:37AM
The Watergate Hotel Solves The Kennedy Assassination
April 13, 2012 12:18AM
The Fashionable Assassin - Yalie #2
March 22, 2012 03:03AM
My Sweet Mystery
March 16, 2012 03:40AM
The Second Worst Drug Dealer In America
February 03, 2012 04:01AM

MY RECENT COMMENTS

“Nothing like a little Israeli self-defense to bring out the anti-Semties includin…”
June 04, 2010 11:58AM
“Liz, I'm glad someone had the balls to say it. Thanks!”
May 19, 2010 06:24PM
“So who does love Chachi these days? And what would Grandma Nussbaum say?”
January 22, 2010 01:36PM
“The way I remember the snapping turtles, you just fed them, never threw the fish…”
January 22, 2010 01:33PM
“Since I am doing 2-5 in Scottsdale at the moment, I am a bit new to the Sheriff J…”
January 09, 2010 05:54PM

Alexzola's Links

New list: The Zola System

« Back to Posts

NOVEMBER 5, 2010 3:35AM

Rate: 1 Flag

1986. The Tigers appear to have a hot shot third baseman in Darnell Coles, a former first round draft pick recently acquired from the Seattle Mariners.Once again, Tom Brookens is relegated to the bench as Sparky Anderson sings the praises of a player who is sure to be a future Hall of Famer. Coles goes on to hit 20 homers and play what I will generously call an erratic third base. Tiger fans across the world wondered why Brookens didn’t start in the first place but hey, that was Sparky - always optimistic all the time.

Tiger fans were want to believe the silver haired leader of our baseball team because his first declaration came to pass: the Detroit Tigers would be world champions within five years of his taking the helm in mid season 1979. (The Kitties would win in 1984.) It mattered not that the Chris Pitaros and Darnell Coles of the world would turn into barely passable big leaguers or that Alan Trammell turned out to be a lousy manager (Sparky’s last major Tiger declaration in 2003.). He brought the Tigers back to respectability. Who cared if the Old Man was suffering from early onset Dementia?

Yesterday, the Anderson family announced Sparky had been moved to hospice care. He was, in fact, suffering from the effects of dementia.Interestingly, few believed Sparky actually had dementia. “You Uncle Mike told me he had a stroke.” I wanted to as well. For me, Dementia and Sparky Anderson meant yet another grand statement about a run of the mill ball player. A managers attempt to keep the fans interested as his once glorious not aging team.

It was those very statements, and his fracturing of the English language second only to Yogi Berra, that made Sparky such a wonderful interview for the national media and Tiger beat writers. After hearing the hospice announcement, I decided to put off writing about the manager who led the Tiger’s throughout my youth to read some of those stories from the players he managed and writers to whom he spoke. Alas, it was not to be.

Sparky Anderson, aka “Dr. Hook” (Anderson pulled pitchers quickly and with great regularity), elected to the Hall of Fame as a manager in 2000, died today in his Thousand Oaks, California home at the age of 76. Two baseball cities and millions of fans are weeping this afternoon. Not bad for a .218 lifetime hitter who found fame as the manger of the Cincinnati Redsand Detroit Tigers.

Res ipsa locquitur