 Anderson attended the University of Washington, where he played college baseball for the Huskies in 1978.Anderson was drafted in the 24th round of the 1978 Major League Baseball Draft out of the University of Washington by the New York Mets.Anderson would see mediocre results in the minors, finishing with a 60-51 record over parts of 11 minor league seasons, as he possessed only average stuff and struck out an extremely low average of 3.5 batters per nine innings.