Don Mattingly

Donald Arthur Mattingly was born on April 20, 1961, in Evansville, Indiana. Although naturally left-handed, he displayed ambidextrous ability. He pitched in Little League Baseball as well as playing first base, throwing both right-handed and left-handed, and was a member of the 1973 Great Scot Little League championship team in Evansville, under the coaching of Pete Studer and Earl Hobbs. In American Legion Baseball for Funkhouser Post #8, Mattingly played at second base, throwing right-handed. Playing for Reitz Memorial High School's baseball team, the Tigers, Mattingly led the school to a state-record 59 straight victories through the 1978–79 season, losing to the Logansport Berries. The Tigers won the state championship in 1978 and finished as the runner-up in 1979. Mattingly was the L.V. Phillips Mental Attitude recipient in 1979. He was All-City, All-Southern Indiana Athletic Conference (SIAC), and All-State in 1978 and 1979. During the four years he played in high school, Mattingly batted .463, leading the Tigers to a 94–9–1 win–loss record. He still holds Reitz Memorial records for hits (152), doubles (29), triples (25), RBI (140), and runs (99). His 25 triples are also an Indiana state record. A multisport athlete (basketball, football and baseball), Mattingly was selected to the SIAC all-conference basketball team in 1978. After graduating from high school, Mattingly was offered a scholarship to play baseball for the Indiana State Sycamores, which he ultimately rejected to play professional baseball. ==Professional career==

Draft and minor leagues in 1981 Mattingly lasted in the 1979 Major League Baseball draft until the 19th round, when he was selected by the New York Yankees. His father, Bill, informed major league teams that his son intended to honor his college commitment and would not sign a professional contract. Don Mattingly was not interested in attending college, so he chose to sign with the Yankees, receiving a $23,000 signing bonus. Mattingly began his professional career in Minor League Baseball with the Oneonta Yankees of the Low-A New York–Penn League in 1979. He hoped to bat .500 for Oneonta and was disappointed with his .349 batting average, which never went lower than .340. He won the league MVP award and was named to the postseason All-Star team. With the Double-A Nashville Sounds in 1981, he hit .316 and led the Southern League with 35 doubles. He was selected to play in the Southern League All-Star Game and named to its postseason All-Star team. Despite Mattingly's hitting ability, concerns existed about his lack of speed and power. Bob Schaefer, his manager at Greensboro, said that the organization considered moving him to second base, from which he would throw right-handed. New York Yankees (1982–1995) Mattingly made his major league debut on September 8, 1982, as a late-inning defensive replacement against the Baltimore Orioles. He recorded his first at bat on September 11 against the Milwaukee Brewers, popping out to third base in the seventh inning. He made his first career major league hit in the bottom of the 11th inning of a 3–2, 12-inning loss to the Boston Red Sox on October 1, a single to right field off Steve Crawford. He only had two hits in 12 at-bats that season. Mattingly spent his rookie season of 1983 as a part-time first baseman and outfielder. After four games in April, he was sent back to Columbus for two months before returning, and hit .283 in 279 at-bats. He hit his first home run on June 24 against John Tudor in a 5–4 road loss to the Red Sox. Mattingly became the Yankees' full-time first baseman in 1984. With a batting average of .339, he was selected as a reserve for the 1984 All-Star Game. Mattingly followed up his breakout season with a spectacular 1985, winning the AL MVP Award. He batted .324 (third in the league) with 35 home runs (fourth), 48 doubles (first), and 145 RBI (first), then the most RBI in a season by a left-handed major league batter since Ted Williams drove in 159 in 1949. His 21-RBI margin over second place in that category was the largest in the American League since Al Rosen's lead of 30 RBI in 1953. He led the league in sacrifice flies (15), total bases (370), and extra base hits (86), and was second in the AL in hits (211) and slugging percentage (.567), third in intentional walks (13) and at bats per strikeout (13.9), sixth in runs (107), and ninth in at bats per home run (18.6). He batted .354 with two out and runners in scoring position. Mattingly was also recognized in 1985 for his defense, winning his first of nine Gold Glove Awards. including one complete game, and recorded 11 assists with one error while throwing left-handed. Mattingly had a better year in 1986, leading the league with 238 hits and 53 doubles, and breaking the single-season franchise records set by Earle Combs (231 hits) and Lou Gehrig (52 doubles); both records had been set on the legendary 1927 team. He also recorded 388 total bases and a .573 slugging percentage, and had the league's longest hitting streak of the season, making hits in 24 consecutive games, from a 3–0 win over the Seattle Mariners in the second game of a doubleheader on August 30 through a 3–2 loss to the Detroit Tigers on September 26. He batted .352 (second in the league), hit 31 home runs (sixth) and drove in 113 runs (third). He was beaten in the American League MVP voting, though, by pitcher Roger Clemens, who also won the Cy Young Award that year. Mattingly also became the last left-handed player to field a ball at third base during a major league game. In 1987, Mattingly tied Dale Long's major league record by hitting home runs in eight consecutive games, from July 8–18 (the All-Star game occurred in the middle of the streak; Mattingly, starting at first base, was 0 for 3). This record was later tied again by Ken Griffey Jr., of the Mariners in 1993. Mattingly also set a record by recording an extra base hit in 10 consecutive games. Mattingly had a record 10 home runs during this streak (Long and Griffey had eight during their streaks), including a 12–3 road win over the Texas Rangers on July 16 in which he had two home runs including a grand slam and a career-high seven RBI. That year, Mattingly set a major league record by hitting six grand slams in a season (two during his July home run streak), a record matched by Travis Hafner during the 2006 season. Mattingly's grand slams in 1987 were ironically the only grand slams of his career. In June 1987, Mattingly reportedly injured his back during some clubhouse horseplay with pitcher Bob Shirley, though both denied this. Nevertheless, he finished with a .327 batting average, 30 home runs, and 115 RBI, his fourth straight year with at least 110 RBIs. Between 1985 and 1987, Mattingly hit 96 home runs with just 114 strikeouts. Unsigned for the 1996 season, Mattingly decided to sit out for the year, and rebuffed an inquiry by the Baltimore Orioles, which tried to sign him at midseason. Mattingly officially announced his retirement in January 1997. For his career, Mattingly never appeared in the World Series, and his tenure with the Yankees marks the team's longest drought (14 years), later tied (2010–2023) without a World Series appearance. The Yankees made the series in both (the year prior to Mattingly's debut) and their championship season (the year after his last with the club). ==Coaching career==

New York Yankees (2004–2007) After retiring as a player, Mattingly spent seven seasons as a special instructor during Yankees' spring training in Tampa, Florida, from 1997 through 2003. Following the 2003 season, the Yankees named Mattingly the hitting coach. He spent three seasons in that role, receiving much praise from the Yankees organization and his players. Under Mattingly, the Yankees set an all-time franchise record with 242 home runs in 2004. After the 2006 season, Mattingly shifted to bench coach, replacing Lee Mazzilli. After the 2007 season, when Joe Torre declined a one-year contract extension, Mattingly was a finalist for the Yankees' manager position, along with Joe Girardi and Tony Peña. The Yankees offered the managerial position to Girardi, who accepted. Los Angeles Dodgers (2008–2010) After not being offered the position of manager for the Yankees, Mattingly joined Torre with the Los Angeles Dodgers as the team's hitting coach. On January 22, 2008, Mattingly was replaced as hitting coach, citing family reasons, instead serving as major league special assignment coach for the Dodgers in 2008. Mattingly succeeded Mike Easler as the Dodgers hitting coach that July. The Dodgers were the National League runners-up in 2008 and 2009 (losing to the Philadelphia Phillies in both National League Championship Series), largely behind the bat of midseason acquisition Manny Ramirez. In the 2009–10 offseason, Mattingly was a finalist for the managerial position with the Cleveland Indians, for which Manny Acta was eventually hired. Toronto Blue Jays (2023–2025) On November 30, 2022, the Toronto Blue Jays announced that Mattingly would join the team as its bench coach. Ahead of the 2024 season, Mattingly was given the additional title of offensive coordinator, overseeing the team's hitting coaches and video coordinator. Following the 2024 season, Mattingly's role was reverted to that of a traditional bench coach. Mattingly was on the coaching roster when the Blue Jays made an unexpected run in the postseason, defeating his former team, the Yankees, in four games in the 2025 American League Division Series, and then winning the 2025 American League Championship Series over the Mariners in seven games to reach the World Series, which was Mattingly's first World Series appearance after over 40 years of playing/managing/coaching. In the 2025 World Series, Mattingly's team lost in seven games to the Dodgers who were managed by Dave Roberts, whom the Dodgers hired after parting ways with Mattingly in 2015. The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw was one of the few players remaining from when Mattingly managed that team. After the World Series loss, Mattingly stepped down from his role with the Blue Jays on November 6, 2025. Philadelphia Phillies (2026) On January 5, 2026, Mattingly was hired to serve as the bench coach for the Philadelphia Phillies under manager Rob Thomson. On April 28, 2026, as the Phillies began the day tied for last place in the majors following losses in 11 of their last 12 games, Thomson was fired and Mattingly was named interim manager through the end of the season. ==Managerial career==

Los Angeles Dodgers (2010–2015) When Torre decided to retire at the end of the 2010 season, Mattingly was announced as his replacement. To acquire some managerial experience, Mattingly managed the Phoenix Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League in 2010. Mattingly made his managerial debut on March 31, 2011, by defeating in-state rival and defending champion San Francisco Giants 2–1 at Dodger Stadium. Despite the background of a bitter divorce battle between Dodgers' owner Frank McCourt and his wife that put the fiscal health of the Dodgers into jeopardy, Mattingly managed to take the Dodgers to a winning record that season due to his mentorship of many young players such as MVP candidate Matt Kemp and Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw: "He's so positive", Kershaw said. "All he asks of us is just go out there and play the way we're supposed to. Do things the right way on the field, and he's happy with you. When it's simple like that, it's easy to play for, and it's fun to play for." In 2013, Mattingly and the Dodgers got off to a rough start due to various injuries, and were in last place in May, leading to much media speculation that he would soon be fired. Once players got healthy, though, the team went on a tear and managed to win the NL West and beat the Atlanta Braves in the 2013 National League Division Series (NLDS) in four games. They then lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS in six games. After the season, Mattingly called out Dodger management for its perceived lack of support of him during the season and said that he wanted a multiyear contract in place to return in 2014. Mattingly finished second in the voting for National League Manager of the Year. Mattingly stated that one of his managerial idols was Tony La Russa. Mattingly admired La Russa from his playing days with the Yankees in the late 1980s. LaRussa had managed the dominant Oakland Athletics teams of the era. Mattingly recalled that despite the A's superiority to the Yankees, they still played intensely. In the subsequent two seasons, the Dodgers won the NL West but lost the NLDS both years; in four games to the Cardinals in 2014, and in five games to the New York Mets in 2015. On October 22, 2015, the Dodgers and Mattingly mutually agreed to part ways, and he stepped down from his position with one year left on his contract. Some have suggested that the Dodgers were not willing to give Mattingly a long-term contract. However, Mattingly said in 2025 that he left the Dodgers in hopes of spending more time with his family. His second wife Lori had to stay in Indiana due to her two sons from a previous marriage being in school, and long commutes to Los Angeles made it difficult to spend time with her and their infant son. He had a 446–363 record with the Dodgers, with a winning percentage of .551, He finished with a postseason record of eight wins and 11 losses Mattingly led the Marlins to 79 wins in his first year (the most wins for the team since winning 80 in 2010), which had him place fifth in the final voting for NL Manager of the Year. In 2020, Mattingly led the Marlins to the NL Wild Card, leading them to the playoffs for the first time since 2003. He also won the NL Manager of the Year award. On July 8, 2021, Mattingly's mutual option for the 2022 season was picked up by both the Marlins and him. On September 25, 2022, Mattingly stated that the Marlins and he mutually agreed that he would finish the season as manager, and not return to the role in 2023. Philadelphia Phillies (2026–present) Mattingly officially joined the Philadelphia Phillies as bench coach on January 5, 2026. Following the dismissal of manager Rob Thomson on April 28, 2026, Mattingly was assigned to be the interim manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. The move came after a 9-19 start to the season. Following Mattingly's promotion to interim manager, the Philadelphia Phillies went on to win their next three games, sweeping the San Francisco Giants. ==International career==

Mattingly managed the MLB All-Star Team at the 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series. ==Managerial record==

{{MLBBioRet Mattingly finished his career with 2,153 hits, 222 home runs, 1,007 runs scored, 1,099 RBIs, with three Silver Slugger Awards. His .307 lifetime batting average then placed him behind only Tony Gwynn (then at .336), Wade Boggs (then at .334), Rod Carew (.328), Kirby Puckett (.318) and Roberto Clemente (.317) among players with 5,000 at bats since the major league expansion era began in 1961. He is commonly cited as the best Yankee player to have never played in a World Series. His career had bad timing, as the Yankees lost the World Series the year before he broke into the big leagues and they ended up winning the World Series in the first year of Mattingly's retirement, not to mention the Yankees had the best record in the American League in 1994 before the strike. This World Series drought (1982–1995) was the longest in Yankees history since the start of the Babe Ruth era in 1920, and it was worsened by the strike, which ended a promising chance for a World Series title. Buck Showalter, Mattingly's last manager during his playing days and a former teammate in the minor leagues, attributed Mattingly's calmness to the controversies he was subjected to as manager of the Dodgers to Mattingly's experience as a player having to deal with controversies during his time with the Yankees. The Yankees retired Mattingly's number 23 and dedicated his plaque for Monument Park at Yankee Stadium on August 31, 1997. The plaque calls him, "A humble man of grace and dignity, a captain who led by example, proud of the pinstripe tradition and dedicated to the pursuit of excellence, a Yankee forever." Additionally, his uniform number with the Double-A Nashville Sounds (18) was retired by the team in a ceremony at Herschel Greer Stadium attended by Mattingly on August 12, 1999. Hall of Fame consideration at Yankee Stadium Mattingly became eligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, receiving 28.2% of the vote (election requires 75%); he dropped to 20% the following year, and generally received between 10% and 14% of the vote over the next decade, receiving only 9% in 2015, his final year of eligibility (he had been grandfathered onto the ballot after the Hall of Fame restricted eligibility to ten years in 2014). Since Mattingly's first year on the ballot, there has been controversy over the election that year of Kirby Puckett, who was also newly eligible and had likewise played his first full season in 1984, as their career statistics are very similar: Puckett's election has generally been attributed to the view that while Mattingly's strongest years were early in his career, Puckett's production was more consistent, and there was considerable sympathy over his career ending abruptly due to an eye injury. And yet there are other similarities other than career totals, as both players won one batting title and led the AL in RBI once and total bases twice; for each, their lowest batting average in a full season was .288, and both topped the .350 mark once. Mattingly finished in the top seven in MVP voting four times, and in the top twenty in three other years; Puckett finished in the top seven in seven years, but otherwise was never in the top twenty. Mattingly won more Gold Gloves (nine to six), and had more seasons with 30 home runs, 100 RBI, 40 doubles or 300 total bases, though Puckett was on more All-Star teams (ten to six). Another Hall of Famer with striking similarities to Mattingly is Bill Terry; both players were left-handed first basemen who spent their entire careers with New York teams on opposite sides of the Harlem River. Both played in all or part of 14 seasons (Terry played 10 full seasons, Mattingly 11), and each won one batting title: Terry's higher averages can be primarily attributed to the remarkably elevated averages in the National League in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which highly favored hitters; when he won the batting title in 1930, the league average was .303 (Mattingly won his title when the league average was .264), and the league average over Terry's career was .283, compared to .263 during Mattingly's career. Mattingly is the most statistically similar player to both Puckett and Terry. One more Hall of Famer who is something of a mirror image to Mattingly is George Kell, whose defensive skills were largely identical to Mattingly's – but the right-handed Kell was able to play as a third baseman, while the left-handed Mattingly was essentially limited to playing on the opposite side of the diamond: Mattingly is now eligible to be inducted into the Hall of Fame via the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee. He was included on the 2018, 2020, 2023 and 2026 ballots, but did not receive enough votes for induction, coming closest with 50% of the vote in 2023. He is eligible to be considered again for the 2029 class of inductees. Mattingly has been honored by two minor league halls of fame. He was inducted in the South Atlantic League Hall of Fame in 1994 and the New York–Penn League Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2001, Mattingly was inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame; his plaque displays his high school and professional careers. In 1987, he was named the American Legion Graduate of the Year, for his success in the major leagues following his American Legion Baseball career. ==Personal life==

with the Single-A Great Lakes Loons Mattingly married Kim Sexton on September 8, 1979; they divorced after his playing career ended. Mattingly and Kim share three sons: Taylor, Preston, and Jordon. Taylor was selected in the 42nd round (1,262nd overall) of the 2003 Major League Baseball draft by the Yankees, and played in 24 games for the Gulf Coast League Yankees in the rookie league before an injury cut short his season. After sitting out all of 2004 and 2005, Taylor retired from baseball in 2005 after only 58 professional at bats. Preston is the general manager for the Philadelphia Phillies. Mattingly married his second wife, Lori, on December 10, 2010, in his hometown of Evansville, Indiana. The wedding, and his managing the Phoenix Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League, prevented him from attending the 2010 winter meetings. In 2014, he and Lori had a son, Louis. Mattingly's older brother, Randy Mattingly, played quarterback at the University of Evansville and was chosen by the Cleveland Browns in the fourth round of the 1973 NFL draft before playing in the Canadian Football League. ==Business ventures==

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Don Mattingly was the owner of a restaurant in Evansville, Indiana, called "Mattingly's 23", after the uniform number he wore for most of his career. In 2005, Mattingly launched Mattingly Sports, a baseball and softball equipment company, based primarily around the patented V-Grip baseball and softball bats. Mattingly is the founder of Mattingly Charities, a nonprofit organization that serves underprivileged youth by supporting programs that promote baseball and softball participation in conjunction with other developmentally related activities. ==In popular culture==

Mattingly appeared in a baseball-themed episode of The Simpsons, "Homer at the Bat", which originally aired on February 20, 1992. In the episode, Mr. Burns, the owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and the manager of its softball team, repeatedly demands that Mattingly trim his sideburns, leading Mattingly to protest that he had no sideburns, and to eventually shave much of his head. Burns, irate, cuts him from the team for defying his orders. As he departs, the exasperated Mattingly says to himself, "I still like him better than Steinbrenner." In 1991, before the episode aired, but after it was produced, then-Yankees manager Stump Merrill told him that until he cut his hair, he would not play. This was in accord with Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's appearance policy requiring his players to maintain well-kept head and facial hair. Mattingly was sporting a longish or mullet-like hair style, and when he refused to cut it, he was benched. Mattingly has also appeared in public-service announcements airing on the Spike TV network advocating fathers spending time with their children as part of the "True Dads" campaign to encourage men to take an active role in their children's lives. Mattingly is referred to by name in several episodes of Seinfeld. In one episode, his uniform pants split because they were made of 100% cotton at the behest of George Costanza. ==See also==