Photo: jimmyack205 / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Don Mattingly is my favorite kind of baseball figure: the great player whose timing was cruel. He gave the Yankees fourteen seasons of brilliant hitting and gold-standard defense, yet retired just before the dynasty years began — and somehow the absence of a ring makes his legend warmer, not smaller. Donnie Baseball was beloved for craft and decency rather than spectacle, which tells you everything about the man from Evansville. That he later earned a Manager of the Year award proves the baseball brain never stopped working. I measure athletes by how their peers speak of them, and by that measure Mattingly is an all-time winner.
Overview
Donald Arthur Mattingly (born April 20, 1961), nicknamed "Donnie Baseball" and "the Hit Man", is an American former first baseman, manager and coach who currently serves as the interim manager for the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB). He spent his entire playing career in MLB with the New York Yankees from 1982 to 1995.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Don Mattingly
- Name (Japanese)
- ドン・マッティングリー
- Reading
- どん・まってぃんぐりー
- Born
- April 20, 1961 (age 65)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Taurus / Ox
- Origin
- Evansville, Indiana, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- 183 cm
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- baseball player / baseball manager / baseball coach
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Reitz Memorial High School
- University
- Private
Awards & achievements
- 1985 Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award
- Rawlings Gold Glove Award
- Silver Slugger Award
- 2020 Major League Baseball Manager of the Year Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Baseball player — see all → · Baseball manager — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.