Don Mattingly
1961-04-20
The Biography
Donald Arthur Mattingly (born April 20, 1961)[1] is an American former professional baseball first baseman, coach, and current manager for the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball (MLB). Nicknamed "The Hit Man" and "Donnie Baseball", he spent his entire 14-year career playing with the New York Yankees and later managed the Los Angeles Dodgers for five years. Mattingly graduated from Reitz Memorial High School in Evansville, Indiana, and was selected by the Yankees in the 1979 amateur draft. Debuting with the Yankees in 1982 after four seasons in Minor League Baseball, he emerged as the Yankees' starting first baseman after a successful rookie season in 1983. Mattingly was named to the American League (AL) All-Star team six times. He won nine Gold Glove Awards (an AL record for a first baseman), three Silver Slugger Awards, the 1984 AL batting title, and was the 1985 AL Most Valuable Player. He served as captain of the Yankees from 1991 through 1995, when he retired as a player. The Yankees later retired Mattingly's uniform number (23), 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 for manager Joe Torre, he followed Torre to the Dodgers in 2008, and succeeded him as the Dodgers' manager in 2011. The Dodgers and Mattingly mutually parted ways after the 2015 season, and he became manager of the Miami Marlins in 2016.