Don Mattingly

Donald Arthur Mattingly (born April 20, 1961), nicknamed "Donnie Baseball" and "the Hit Man", is an American former first baseman, manager and coach in Major League Baseball (MLB) who spent his entire playing career with the New York Yankees from 1982 to 1995. A 6-time All-Star, he led the American League (AL) in doubles three consecutive years, and in hits and total bases twice each. After winning the AL batting title with a .343 mark in his first full season in 1984, he was named the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1985 after hitting .324 with 145 runs batted in (RBI), the highest total in the league in over 30 years. The following year, he was runner-up for the MVP award after batting .352, leading the AL in hits, doubles, slugging percentage and total bases; his 53 doubles and 388 total bases were the highest totals by any major league player in the 1980s, and his totals of doubles and 238 hits remain Yankees franchise records. In 1987 he tied a major league record by hitting home runs in eight consecutive games, and later that year set another record by hitting six grand slams in one season. Congenital back problems, which forced him to miss part of the 1990 season, also contributed to a decline in Mattingly's power hitting, but after being named the team's captain in 1991, he enjoyed a resurgence in productivity, leading the Yankees in RBI, hits, doubles, runs scored and batting average in 1992. Long frustrated by the team's failure to reach the postseason despite having the best record of any major league team during the 1980s, he helped lead the team to first place in 1994, batting .304, only to have the playoffs cancelled due to a work stoppage. He finally reached the postseason in his final season in 1995, but New York lost the Division Series in five games although Mattingly batted .417 with a home run and four doubles, driving in go-ahead runs in three games. His veteran leadership and influence on a core of young players has been credited for helping propel the club to four World Series titles in the next five years. Regarded as one of the greatest defensive first basemen in history, Mattingly won a league-record nine Gold Glove Awards, leading the AL in fielding percentage seven times, also a league record; he retired with the highest career fielding percentage (.996) in league history, since broken by Mark Teixeira. His 1,634 games at first base then ranked tenth in AL history, his 1,104 assists ranked ninth, and his 1,500 double plays were tied for fifth; his 14,148 putouts were the fifth most in the AL since 1940. After batting over .300 seven times, Mattingly retired with a career average of .307, then the sixth highest among major league players with at least 5,000 at bats since 1960. The Yankees retired his uniform number (23) in 1997, making him the only Yankee to have his number retired without having won a World Series with the team. Returning to the Yankees as a coach in 2004 under manager Joe Torre, Mattingly followed Torre to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2008, and later succeeded him for five seasons, winning three division titles. He then became manager of the Miami Marlins for seven years, and was named the National League (NL) Manager of the Year in 2020 after guiding the team to its first playoff appearance in 17 years; he joined Frank Robinson and Torre to become the third person to win an MVP Award, a Gold Glove and Manager of the Year. He served as bench coach for the Toronto Blue Jays from 2023 to 2025.