Perhaps, but I still felt very bad for Les Moss, who replaced Houk for the 1979 season, then was undeservedly and unceremoniously dumped less than a quarter of the way into it with a 27-26 record. He really had earned the Tigers manager spot by working his way up the franchise's minor-league chain, while winning a couple of championships and had been named the Minor League Manager of the Year by The Sporting News in '78.
I remember that and agree, did feel bad for Moss too, but it was short lived.
I mean, heck, we were getting 'Sparky' as our Tigers manager.
Back in the early 80's I went to see the Tigers at fenway, with Uncle Charlie, the seats I had were given to me by a lady, who was a life long friend of the Yawkeys, that had lifetime tix along with her friend and another long time Yawkey friend. Their 4 seats were first row next to the redsox on deck circle.
Anyways, we get there for batting practice, and there's Sparky hitting fungoes to the outfielders, the balls are thrown in to him, and one gets by him and rolls to the 3 foot wall were we were standing.
Charlie, always with the wise crack, says "George, (yeah he called Sparky George), you didn't let them get by you in your playing days". Now Charlie was Sparkys age so back then they both must have been 50.
Sparky comes over says hi, we shake hands, and we talk Tigers baseball their current team and past Tigers history for 20 minutes!! It was great, Sparky was a man of the people, made you feel like a long time friend. To this day I don't remember who won the game, all I remember is talking Tigers baseball with Sparky.
