In 1997, just when he was emerging as one of the Toronto Blue Jays’ top outfield prospects, his newlywed wife died in a skiing accident.
In 2002, Sanders’ 8-year-old son died of a heart defect.
He lost both grandmothers in the last seven years.
In May, 2004, Sanders’ aunt on his mother’s side was murdered by her husband.
"I don’t know how he keeps going and going,” said Claudia Sanders, who married Anthony in 2000.
Sanders has fought through the agony and grief as he continues to pursue his goal of returning to the major leagues. He is currently on the Triple-A SkyChiefs’ disabled list with a back injury. He hopes to return before the season ends.
"I’ve asked him, ‘Is this worth it?’” she continued. "He still has a dream, he still has a twinkle in his eye, and he still wants to go after it.’’
Character in Adversity
Thousands of career minor leaguers have quit for a lot less. To teammates and coaches who know the story, the only thing more amazing than Sanders’ perseverance is that he has never used his personal tragedies as an excuse for not sticking in the majors.
At age 31, he has played only 13 major-league games in his 13-year career. In the minors, he has appeared in 1,112 games for 11 different teams.
”The good baseball stories are these kind of stories,’’ said Syracuse outfielder Anton French, who has known Sanders since 1997. "It’s not the guys who are going to get pushed through the minor leagues and they know they’re going to the big leagues…It’s a guy like Anthony who’s been through all this.”
The First Shock
On March 8, 1997, Denise Sanders was skiing in the White Mountains of Arizona when she lost control and hit a tree. Anthony’s high school sweetheart and the mother of his son, died a short time later from head injuries.
Anthony, who had turned 23 March 2, considered retiring so he could devote all of his time to his son, Anthony Jr., but he returned to the Blue Jays’ Double-A team in Knoxville and had the best season of his five-year career.
In April 1999, Sanders made his first major-league start for Toronto and went 2-for-4 against the Anaheim Angels.
Moments in the Sun
In January 2000, Sanders remarried with Claudia Aparicio, a high school friend from their hometown of Tucson, Ariz. They have had three children together: Logan, 4 ½, Marcus, 2 and Troy, 5 months.
Sanders spent most of the 2000 season with the Seattle Mariners’ Triple-A team in Tacoma, Wash. In September, he was a member of the United States’ team that won the gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
After Team USA beat Cuba in the gold-medal game, Sanders hoisted Anthony Jr., who waved an American flag, onto his shoulders and paraded around the field.
A Second Cruel Turn
In 2002, Anthony Jr. was diagnosed with a faulty heart valve. After Denise died, he and his father became inseparable. The boywas a regular at the ballpark, shagging fly balls in the outfield and playing Nintendo with his dad’s teammates in the clubhouse.
Sanders was playing for Cincinnati’s Triple-A team at Louisville before the Reds traded him in May to the Chicago White Sox, who assigned him to Triple-A Charlotte. That same month, Junior had surgery..
Doctors were guarded but optimistic that Sanders’ son would have a full recovery. On July 23, 2002, the boy woke up complaining of a sore neck. He went back to sleep and never regained consciousness.
Three days after Anthony Jr. died, his father delivered a tearful eulogy at the funeral in Tucson. Dressed in an Olympic USA Baseball jersey, Anthony Jr. was laid to rest in the same cemetery plot as his mother.
Paying Dues Above and Beyond
Anthony Sanders goes to church regularly in the off-season. During the season he attends "baseball chapel” on Sundays at the ballpark. He’s a faithful husband, a loving father, and he doesn’t smoke, drink or use foul language.
The Greeks measured their heroes by how they suffered at the hands of the gods. Even a man of great faith, though, in such moments, must ponder why so much of what is precious in life has been taken away.
"For a while there after all that happened, I really got mad and didn’t want to go to church… like I used to,’’ Sanders said. "There are a lot of other people out there doing worse things than I’m doing, and this keeps happening to me.’’
Sanders sat out the rest of the 2002 season after Anthony Jr. died. He considered sitting out 2003, too. He returned to Charlotte and spent most of the year there before getting released in July. He signed with the Blue Jays, who sent him to Double-A New Haven.
In May of 2004, Sanders was recovering from an injury and getting ready to play for the Colorado Rockies’ Triple-A team in Colorado Springs. His uncle shot and killed his aunt, then killed himself. For the family man, it was another shudder in the force that guided both his personal life and career.
"The biggest thing when you’re hitting is thinking. Thinking about this or that, or worried about this or that,’’ said Sanders, a lifetime .256 hitter in the minors. "But when your mind is on something totally different, it makes it that much harder.”
The Rockies traded Sanders to the Blue Jays last June, and Toronto sent him to Syracuse. He re-signed with the Blue Jays in the fall, hoping to crack Toronto’s opening day roster as a reserve outfielder, but he was assigned to Syracuse, where he played only two games before going on the disabled list.
Sitting on the sidelines recovering from his injury has given Sanders a lot of time to think.
He thinks of Denise, and he wonders what kind of baseball player Anthony Jr. would be now at 11.He is grateful to have Claudia and his other children in his life.
"They always say there’s a reason for everything. A lot of times, I don’t believe in that after what happened to me,’’ Sanders said. "But then I have to look at what I’m blessed with now.
"I have no regrets. I don’t want to use that as an excuse for anything that happens in the game.
"Personally, I don’t feel like I’ve got to where I need to go, and that’s what keeps me going.”
In the baseball sports industry, as it has become, stories of character and opportunities for the silent cogs in the wheels of the farm system are few and far between.
Still, if the baseball gods were to smile upon anyone, and give them a break, there are few people in the game who deserve it more than Anthony Sanders.
