Fun story about Sparky

[Aquifer]

Reading yesterday in the card forum about Rip-off stories was depressing so I decided to counterattack with this fun one about Sparky Anderson.

My dad's family is from a small (I do mean small) town in South Dakota, where in the 20's-30's, each region had a local amateur league composed of town teams. One of the opposing towns was Bridgewater, SD, where Sparky was born. I recovered an old scorebook from that time, 1932-37, and in the 1936 season, noticed two Andersons playing for Bridgewater. I knew Sparky hailed from Bridgewater (I think all South Dakotans are required to learn that!) and so on a complete lark, I wrote to him and enclosed a copy of the scorebook page.

Two days later, my phone rang and it was Sparky himself, more excited than I (well, maybe!). "Where on earth did you get this?" he exclaimed. "That's my father and my uncle," and we went on to talk almost an hour about his recollections of those games, and baseball in general. What a gracious and kind man he was that day and since I had sent him two copies of the scorebook page, he was happy to sign one for me and mail it back. Very much fun and I am so glad I was able to get to him while his health permitted.