South Dakotans in the Pros - Sparky Anderson

My guess is most of you haven't been to South Dakota before.  There's Mount Rushmore on the west end, and Sioux Falls on the east, and 350 miles of farm and ranch land in between.  With under a million people, we have just one U.S. representative for the whole state.  Several presidents spent significant down time here.  And celebrities and east coast big wigs come here annually for the hunting and fishing.  Don't let the "south" deceive you.  South Dakota is a northern state that gets really cold in the winter.  In December and January, the morning work commute is in the dark, and the evening commute is as well.  Because it's a rural state and outdoor activities/sports can only happen seven months out of the year, South Dakota hasn't produced a lot of professional athletes.  This series is to spotlight those South Dakotans who made it all the way to the pros in their sport.

Because the pickings are slim, South Dakota sometimes claims athletes that perhaps it shouldn't.  That might be the case with former major league manager Sparky Anderson.  He was born in Bridgewater and lived there until only age eight.  It was at that time during WWII that his family had to move to Los Angeles in order to find work.  He became a batboy for USC's baseball team, and the rest is history.  But we still claim him.

Bridgewater is a little town of about 500 people located about 30 miles straight west of Sioux Falls.  The town is so small that they have to combine with the nearby town of Emery in order to field sports teams.  I'm not sure if that was the case back in Sparky's day.

I've been to Bridgewater two times in my life.  Both times were to attend a middle school basketball tournament held there.  The school where the games were held appeared to be old enough to be the building Sparky would have attended his early grades, but I don't know that for a fact.  In the lobby of the gymnasium, off to the side and almost unnoticeable, is a plaque on the wall with a picture of Sparky Anderson on it and a few lines talking about it being his hometown and his accomplishments in baseball later on.  I have a funny story about one of those tournament games.  The officiating was very lopsided and in favor of the home team of course.  There were lots of angry shouts from the crowd as the officials kept the game close in what should have been a blowout.  With seconds left, a highly controversial call gave the home team a basket and they won by one point.  The visiting crowd was really upset.  After the game, the official, the home team coach and one of the home players walked out together and got into the same car.  Yup, the official was the coach's husband and dad of one of the players.  Only in South Dakota.

Since then I heard they've built a new baseball park in Bridgewater and named it after Sparky Anderson.  I've never seen it.  I thought about driving out and taking a picture for this post, but everything's under a foot of snow so it wouldn't have been that interesting.

My Sparky Anderson PC is pretty sparse.  I'm showing the entire PC in this post.  Everything comes from flagship sets of Topps or Donruss.

Maybe we're not stretching it to claim Sparky as our own.  He did say he was from South Dakota in his Hall of Fame induction speech after all.

Can anybody name other South Dakota athletes without looking?