As Yankees legends go, Mattingly's career didn't reach the same gaudy heights as others -- unless he pulls a Joe Torre and becomes a highly successful manager, he won't make the Hall of Fame (thanks, injuries), and his only postseason experience was a losing series against Seattle when the Yankees were the 1995 wildcard -- but he is beloved by Yankees fans, particularly those of a certain age ...
... like me, in my early 40s. It's no accident that his retired number is my Twitter avatar.
For us, rooting the the Yankees during the Mattingly years meant supporting a team that was sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes awful, but never quite good enough until 1994 and the strike and 1995 and the fifth game against Seattle and 1996 with Tino Martinez playing first base. The Yankees' Wikipedia page actually has a section called "Struggles: The Mattingly Years (1982-1995)."
It meant seeing unbelievable greatness and an unfair decline, betrayed by a body that could no longer do what it did before.
But during that time, Mattingly was our guy. As wave upon wave of players came and went, he was there, giving all he had, even if was only good and not the great of his early years. Yet we remembered those early years, and we rejoiced at the reminders of them.
After Mattingly retired, the Yankees started a new dynasty, and we loved the heroes of those teams: Tino, Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, David Wells, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. But before any of those guys, there was Don Mattingly.
And we'll always love him for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment