Don Mattingly makes it to World Series in 39th season of professional baseball

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/David J. Phillip)

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.

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.”

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press