As he prepared to deliver a eulogy for a baseball man he’d long admired, Kansas City Royals broadcaster Ryan Lefebvre repeated stories he’d traded with former teammates in the days after John Anderson passed away.None failed to mention how the legendary Minnesota Gophers baseball coach was a father figure. And for two hours Monday night, that theme carried throughout a celebration of life as the Gophers baseball community honored Anderson, who died of a heart attack at the age of 71 on July 26, at Maturi Pavilion on the University of Minnesota campus.Lefebvre, one of countless people in Major League Baseball who played for Anderson during his 43 seasons as the Gophers manager, recalled the story of his recruiting trip. Raised in Los Angeles, Lefebvre didn’t think there was a chance he’d end up in frigid Minnesota until he saw how unique its baseball program was.“It was just different,” Lefebvre said. “The way the players treated me, the way the coaches treated me. I go say goodbye to John, and he said, ‘Ryan, I really hope you will consider us because we need a player like you.’ Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before.“That was his gift. He made people feel like he needed you more than you needed him. Which now, as we’re adults, it was the other way around.”One can’t talk about Anderson’s run as the Gophers coach without mentioning the victories. With 1,390 wins, Anderson is the most successful coach in Big Ten baseball history. Minnesota won 11 Big Ten regular-season championships, 10 tournament titles, and reached the NCAA postseason 19 times under Anderson. Seven of Anderson’s players earned a combined 13 All-America First Team honors, while at least 25 played in the big leagues.Still, winning wasn’t everything for Anderson.<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"> </span>“You realize really quickly why he’s held in the regard that he was held in, and it had nothing to do with baseball,” said Glen Perkins, longtime Minnesota Twins pitcher and current broadcaster. “He wanted people to leave there better people than they were when they got there. He realized that if you have good people and then you make them better people while they’re there, you’re creating a better world. He created a place where people wanted to come back to and where people were proud to have been a part of that program.”