Don Mattingly makes it to World
Series in 39th season of professional baseball
[October 24, 2025]
By RONALD BLUM
TORONTO (AP) — Reaching the World Series for the first time at the
end of his 39th season in professional baseball, Don Mattingly gives
more than advice to Toronto manager John Schneider. Donnie Baseball
provides cover.
On the night before Game 3 of the Division Series, Schneider brought
Mattingly along for dinner at Patsy’s, an old Frank Sinatra favorite
Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan. A visiting manager about to
take on the Yankees figured he shouldn't be out alone in New York.
“I went with Donnie on purpose, so they went after him, not me,”
Schneider said. “It was great. A Donnie special.”
Mattingly will be Schneider's bench coach when the Blue Jays open
the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night, in
his 10th season as a coach along with 17 as a professional player
and 12 as a big league manager.
“It feels good. Obviously, it feels good to get here,” he said
Thursday. “I don’t know how else to say it. It felt great.”
Mattingly was drafted by the Yankees in 1979 and he spent 14 big
league seasons in the Bronx. He's frequently referred to as the
Greatest Yankees Player Never to Win a Title, which comes up when
people mention Aaron Judge could eclipse him for that unwanted
moniker.
“I can’t think about it. It’s too late now, right?” said Mattingly,
64. “It is what it is as a player. It was different time, for sure.
Only one year of my whole career was a wild card.”
He was hired as Schneider's bench coach ahead of the 2023 season,
just after leaving his job as Miami's manager, and had the
additional role of offensive coordinator in 2024. The 45-year-old
Schneider grew up in New Jersey during Mattingly's playing days.
“I had the Hit Man poster in my room, the pinstripe suit," Schneider
said, thinking back to the 1980s Converse ad campaign that pictured
Mattingly in a white pinstriped suit while holding a bat as if it
were a Tommy gun. “We took a picture at Yankee Stadium after we won
that series and I sent it to him and I said: 8-year-old me is pretty
pumped up right now.”
Mattingly debuted with the Yankees in 1982, a year after they lost
to the Dodgers in the World Series.
A six-time All-Star, nine-time Gold Glove first baseman, MVP and AL
batting champion, Mattingly captained the Yankees in his final five
seasons. He never reached the playoffs until 1995, when he hit .417
with a homer and six RBIs in the five-game Division Series loss to
Seattle.
Mattingly put the Yankees ahead with a tiebreaking, two-run double
in the sixth inning of Game 5 but David Cone blew the lead in the
eighth inning. Seattle won on Edgar Martinez's 11th-inning RBI
double. Mattingly would have been up second in the 12th.
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Toronto Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly speaks during a World
Series baseball media day, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Toronto. The
Toronto Blue Jays face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 on Friday.
(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
One month later, Mattingly told the Yankees they should find another
first baseman for 1996, and New York went on to win its first title
since 1978. Mattingly announced his retirement in January 1997, and
his No. 23 was retired that summer. He returned to the Yankees as a
coach from 2004-07 under manager Joe Torre and interviewed to
succeed Torre but lost out to Joe Girardi.
Mattingly followed Torre to the Dodgers as a coach for three
seasons, then succeeded his old boss as manager and held the job for
five years.
Clayton Kershaw, the longest-tenured Dodgers player at 18 seasons,
was drafted in 2006 in the same class as Mattingly's son Preston,
now the Philadelphia Phillies' general manager. Kershaw said Don had
the same dugout demeanor as Torre.
“Every day he was the same guy. He knew what to say. He didn’t say a
ton," Kershaw said. "There wasn’t a lot of like, `Hey, pat you on
the back,' or, `Hey, great job.' It was almost like an expected
professionalism that he expected from us.”
Mattingly's Dodgers were knocked out in the NL Championship Series
in 2013 and in the Division Series the following two years. He left
after the 2015 season and signed with the low-budget Miami Marlins.
He departed after the 2022 season, having reached the playoffs only
in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, when he was voted NL Manager
of the Year.
“It's really about the players and it’s really about help helping
them any way you can and you’re in a sense a servant,” he said. “You
want to have that heart that’s for somebody else. Your success only
comes through them.”
Mattingly's production had been diminished by back injuries since at
least 1990, and he finished with a .307 career average, 222 homers
and 1,099 RBIs. His numbers were close to those of Hall of Famer
Kirby Puckett, who batted .318 with 207 homers and 1,085 RBIs in 12
years with Minnesota
“I think I remember last year looking up his numbers, his stats,
'cause I knew he was a great player but I never knew how great the
numbers really were.” Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement said, “For
his time in the major leagues he was one of the best.”
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