In his 26 years as a major league manager - managing almost non-stop from 1970 through 1995 - Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson managed many memorable games and led some of the game's greatest players to the promised land. With five World Series appearances (including three Championships) and two more first-place finishes, Tigers and Reds fans through the Sparky years never had much to complain about.

In all that time - over 4,000 regular season games - Sparky was involved in only four games that lasted into the 18th inning or longer. In 1972, the Reds outlasted the Dodgers in 19 innings when pinch-hitter Joe Hague singled in pinch-runner Ted Uhlaender to walk-off with the 2-1 victory. In 1982, the Tigers beat the Indians in an 18-inning marathon 4-3, after Alan Trammell scored on a wild pitch from Ed Glynn. The Tigers then lost a 19-inning game to the Indians in 1984 and an 18-inning game to the Yankees in 1988. Four out of four-thousand - that doesn't sound like that an unreasonable of a ratio.

Which makes what happened in 1966 all the more interesting. In his third year as a minor-league manager - he would go on to manage five total years in the minors, ending with a record of 395-295 - Sparky found himself in the single-A Florida State League managing the St. Petersburg Cardinals in their first year as a Cardinals affiliate.

On June 14, the Cards hooked up with the Miami Marlins to play what was at the time the longest game ever played in organized baseball, a 29-inning, seven-hour affair that had Sparky sitting "in secluded silence" upon its finale.

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I know I haven't posted much recently, but I plan on fixing that shortly. In the meantime, though, I wanted to acknowledge some very sad news that was announced this afternoon: Sparky Anderson, World Series-winning manager of the Big Red Machine and the 1980s Detroit Tigers, passed away today at barely 76-years old. For anyone who watched baseball in any way in the '80s (or the '70s, I suppose), it was hard not to be fascinated with the white-haired, grizzled Anderson. How many other managers had a nickname anyway?! He looked more like he should be dishing grandfetherly advice to the kids in the stands, not managing line-ups and arguing with umpires.

I expect I'll have more to say about Sparky tonight or tomorrow morning. He's just too interesting of a character not to dig into his career a little more. Until then, I just wanted to remind everyone of the best story I ever heard about Sparky. I wrote about this last December after playing through the Sporting News archives:

As James became more and more widely read and accepted in the 1980s, his name started cropping up more and more - in letters, in editorials, in team recaps/reviews. I'll leave you with my favorite of the early-1980s mentions of Bill James. Don't forget to check out SABR's website for membership information so you too can have access to this fantastic resource.

From the May 14, 1984, issue of TSN, in the "Caught on the Fly" section:

Bill James, author of "Baseball Abstract", offered some stinging criticism of Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson along with his statistical theories in the 1984 edition. "He's a fat little guy with a beard who has no knowledge of anything," countered Anderson. James stood his ground during an interview on a Detroit radio station. He said Anderson's managing had cost the Tigers "100 wins" in his first five years in Detroit. "You want to see how stupid he is?" said Anderson of James, whom he has never met. "From what he says, we should be 475-226. No team ever played at that percentage over a five-year period."

Is that not the best story? (Okay, I'm sure there are better... I still like it.)

Baseball lost a good one today. Sparky will be missed all around baseball, not just Cincinnati and Detroit.

Congratulations to all the Giants fans out there. It's certainly been a long time coming. Enjoy it as much as possible. Timmy & Cain & Buster should be carrying you far for a long time.

Wilson: Say, man, you got a World Series trophy?
Timmy: No, not on me, man.
Wilson: Be a lot cooler if you did.

On this day last year, I wrote a piece called "WAR on your Birthday". October 28, after all, is my birthday, and I was interested in finding out who the best players were who had the same birthday as me. The answer wasn't very interesting: Bob Veale, who accumulated 27.6 Wins Above Replacement (Rally method) in his career.

Though everyone seemed to like the list I created, it wasn't perfect. It only showed the top WAR leaders for each day of the month. So, on days like November 21, it would be impossible to know, from that list, that both Ken Griffey Jr. and Stan Musial were born on the same day.

I'm correcting that this year. If you head on over to the new list, you find the five best players born on each day of the year, as measured by Rally WAR. The totals only go through 2009, so someone like Tim Lincecum or Roy Halladay or Evan Longoria is bound to move up some when Rally publishes those numbers. In the meantime, if you're curious how they stack up, Baseball Reference has an updated Rally WAR value for everyone in the league.

I think that about covers everything. Feel free to take a look at the calendar of the best player born on your birthday. Who's the greatest player ever born on your birthday? The second greatest? The third? Can you top my Bob Veale, Tommy Tucker, Juan Guzman combo? I'd love to hear it.

For my World Series Preview post, I didn't want to do the same thing that everyone else is doing. After all, you can only read so many analyses before they start blurring together. Besides, I'm doing a World Series Preview podcast tonight with Bill and the Common Man from Platoon Advantage and a couple of guests. There'll be plenty of room there for your traditional analysis.

Instead, for the blog post, I thought I'd do something a bit more creative. For both the Giants and the Rangers, I've written the tale of their World Series journey in the style of a classic poem. Both poems I chose are short and simple, so you don't need to worry about paging through Beowulf here. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, though.

Below is the Rangers' tale. The San Francisco poem - El Dorado de Octubre - can be found here. Feel free to let me know what you think about the poems or the Series.

Enjoy!

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For my World Series Preview post, I didn't want to do the same thing that everyone else is doing. After all, you can only read so many analyses before they start blurring together. Besides, I'm doing a World Series Preview podcast tonight with Bill and the Common Man from Platoon Advantage and a couple of guests. There'll be plenty of room there for your traditional analysis.

Instead, for the blog post, I thought I'd do something a bit more creative. For both the Giants and the Rangers, I've written the tale of their World Series journey in the style of a classic poem. Both poems I chose are short and simple, so you don't need to worry about paging through Beowulf here. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, though.

Below is the Giants' tale. The Texas poem - Nolan's Land of Playoff Ball - can be found here. Feel free to let me know what you think about the poems or the Series.

Enjoy!

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Now that we've gotten through two rounds of the playoffs, it's time for a quick update to the Wezen-Ball MLB Predictions contest. Here's the update from last week, and here's the details about the contest.

To see the leaderboard and everybody's full predictions, side-by-side, click here.

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It's the Rangers versus the Giants in the World Series this week. You can't imagine how excited I am to see that match-up over the yet another Yankees/Phillies matchup that everyone and their mother's uncle (myself included) predicted. With the exciting players, beautiful ballparks, deprived fanbases, and (relatively) modest payrolls, the 2010 World Series looks to be exactly what I was hoping for. I can't wait for it to get underway on Wednesday.

I expect there will be plenty more about the series here at Wezen-Ball over the next couple of days - including another podcast with Bill and the Common Man from Platoon Advantage on Tuesday night - but for now I just wanted to take a quick look back at the two managers involved. If you think this is just an excuse to run pictures of those two baseball cards above... well, you're partly right (but can you blame me?!).

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Last year at this time, the Terrific Girlfriend guest-posted with a brilliant review of the 2009 Brewers season - the 2009 Brewers Grades and Random Talent Show Awards. Well, since the 2010 season is almost a mirror-image of the 2009 season, it doesn't seem worth giving out another report card. Those looking for something like that, just go back and read the 2009 Brewers Grades and Random Talent Show Awards. That should about cover it.

But we can't let October go by without a new post from the Terrific Girlfriend. Here, then, for your enjoyment, is a look at some of 2010's greatest failed fan promotions. We all know teams, with an eye on the bottom-line, tend to do some questionable or outrageous stuff to lure fans to the ballpark, but the lengths to which they go aren't always noticeable until you see them all listed together like this. Heck, even the Yankees get into the crazy-business every now and then. I have to say, I'm glad I never had to go to a game like these...

With the economy in the toilet, many baseball clubs resorted to having additional promotions to boost revenue. Here are some that didn't go over so well.

Twins

"Island of Dr. Morneau Night". This took place after Joe Nathan was placed on the DL. The Twins announced that Justin Morneau would splice the DNA of several baseball players together with their mascot to create a new closer.

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Umpires, umpires, umpires. We cannot get through a playoff game anymore without having to deal with at least one questionable call. I wrote about it last year, and even mentioned it again last week. As I've said many times before, these things are not new.

While looking up video about the Loma Prieta/World Series earthquake this afternoon, I found the video posted below. If the embed doesn't work properly, fast-forward the video to 4:16, to the start of Dave Parker's at-bat:

The video only lasts twenty seconds before the earthquake hits and it cuts out. There's enough there to see something interesting, though.

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