Saturday, November 6, 2010

Sparky Anderson on language

Steve Rushin remembers baseball manager Sparky Anderson:

“I truly don’t know the language,” Sparky once told me. “I wish I could know the difference between a noun and a pronoun and an adverb and a verb, but I don’t know, and you know, I don’t wanna know. Why do you have to know English? It's like ‘two.’ There‘s three ‘twos’! There’s tee-oh, there’s tee-double-ya-oh, and there’s tee-double-oh! Three twos! Now, if I put any one of those down in a letter, you know which one it is I’m talkin’ about. It’s like ‘there’ and ‘their.’ What’s the difference, as long as you know there’s a there there."

Former Tigers, Reds manager Sparky Anderson had own language (Sports Illustrated)
Sometimes, alas, there is no there there.

comments: 2

Pete said...

And I suspect that he lived a happier life than those of us who worry about grammar.

Elaine said...

I was a Cincinnati resident and Reds fan during Sparky's great days...and he was always terrific, even when he wasn't appreciated by the front office. I love grammar, and I loved Sparky, too.