I was a month away from turning five when I attended my first Yankees game in August 1991. The Yankees were dreadful. They would finish the year 71-91 and 20 games out of first in the pre-wild-card, two-division American League, but back then I wasn’t worried about their record or the in-game decisions of Stump Merrill, and I didn’t care that the Yankees hadn’t been in the postseason for going on 10 years. When you’re nearly five years old, just going to a major-league game — and a Yankees game — is cool, and back then it was cool because Don Mattingly made it so.
I knew who Mattingly was because of my dad and my older brother, and because they liked the Yankees and Mattingly, I liked them too. Donnie Baseball turned 30 that season but was talked about as if he had turned 90. He hit .288/.339/.394 and was only 3 percent better than league average at the plate (which would make him a star on the current Yankees). After being arguably the best player in the world from 1984 to 1987 and still awesome in 1988 and 1989, Mattingly had a horrid ’90 season, and while better in ’91, he would never return to his prime years of leading the league in hits, doubles, RBIs, batting average, OPS, OPS+, and total bases — all while winning the Gold Glove at first each season to go along with an AL MVP and a second-place finish for the MVP another season.
Mattingly got screwed on the timing of his life. He debuted with the Yankees in 1982, a year after they went to the World Series, and retired after 1995, a year before they would win the World Series. He only got one trip to the postseason because until his last season there was no Division Series, Wild Card round, or Wild Card game. The 1983 Yankees won 91 games and didn’t play in the postseason. The 1985 Yankees won 97 games and didn’t play in the postseason. The 1986 Yankees won 90 games and didn’t play in the postseason. Under the current postseason format, Mattingly would have played in the postseason in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1993, 1994 (if there hadn’t been a strike), and 1995. Instead, he only appeared in the postseason once — in 1995 — and went 10-for-24 with four doubles, a home run, and six RBIs, posting a .417/.440/.708 slash line.
Mattingly became the Yankees’ hitting coach in 2004, and sure enough, the Yankees pissed away a 3-0 series lead in the ALCS. He stayed in that role in 2005 and moved to bench coach for 2006 and 2007, only for the Yankees to have three straight ALDS exits. He was then passed over for the manager position and followed Torre to the Dodgers. He became manager there in 2011 and, in five years, managed three first-place teams, but each time fell short of the World Series.
In seven years with the Marlins, he couldn’t get a roster with a payroll equivalent to one year of Carlos Rodón to the place he had never been, and it wasn’t until now — in his third season as bench coach for the Blue Jays — that he finally got to the World Series. Fourteen years as a player for the Yankees, two years as the hitting coach for the Yankees, two years as the bench coach for the Yankees, three years as the hitting coach for the Dodgers, five years as manager of the Dodgers, seven years as manager of the Marlins, and three years as bench coach for the Blue Jays.
I despise the Blue Jays — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, Bo Bichette, Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Ernie Clement, Isiah Kiner-Falefa — all of them. If they win, there isn’t a member of the team I would be happy for other than Mattingly.
For as much as I despise the Blue Jays, I despise Dave Roberts more. Of course, for the steal which led to the Red Sox winning their first World Series in 86 years, but also for his mismanagement of his lineup and bullpen in the 2018 World Series, which gave the Red Sox their fourth championship in 15 years. His recent post-NLCS remarks about the Dodgers “ruining baseball” did make me like him momentarily — and then I remembered he batted Kiké Hernández third in the 2018 World Series and used Ryan Madson like it was 2009.
Thanks to the Aaron Boone Yankees, I lost the ability to chirp my wife about her having never seen her Dodgers win a “real” World Series since she was born after the 1988 win — and because 2020 wasn’t exactly real. So part of me wants to think it’s OK now if they win again, and the other part of me remembers the Dodgers bailing out the Red Sox in August 2012, which allowed the Red Sox to get out of the bad contracts for Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford and retool and win the World Series the next season. That other part of me also doesn’t want the Yankees to lose the title of the last team to win back-to-back championships when they won three straight from 1998 to 2000.
The Dodgers winning is good for my stance that the postseason isn’t a crapshoot, but the 94-win Blue Jays winning also helps that argument, as they are the 1-seed in the AL. The Dodgers winning proves the Yankees should have a better revenue-to-payroll ratio, while the Blue Jays winning shows creating a lineup full of low-strikeout players is what’s needed in October. The Dodgers winning makes my in-laws happy, but the Blue Jays winning gets Mattingly his elusive ring (even if it comes wearing that disgusting uniform).
When I lay it all out, there’s no good choice. There’s no right choice. They’re both bad options. Unfortunately, one of them has to win. At least it’s not the Red Sox or Mets.
Last modified: Oct 24, 2025
