Following the form they displayed in the regular season, Anderson and his Tigers would lose just one game in the playoffs as they defeated the NL champion San Diego Padres in five games to claim the franchise’s first Fall Classic since 1968. And Anderson became the first manager to win the World Series in both leagues. He had certainly proven himself after his release from Cincinnati, however he would later reflect on his initial feelings of redemption in his 1998 autobiography They Call Me Sparky.
“When the Tigers won in ’84, I finally felt vindicated,” he wrote. “It wasn’t until years after that, though, before I released all the bitterness I should never have allowed to creep into my mind in the first place.”
Anderson continued to manage the Tigers – winning another division title in 1987 – until his retirement from the major leagues in 1995. He left the game with 2,194 victories as a manager, which at the time ranked third in history behind Connie Mack and John McGraw.
Sparky Anderson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2000. He passed away in 2010.