Mattingly Is on the Verge of Homer Record : Yankee First Baseman Seeks to Knock Long Out of Record Book

Until Saturday, Don Mattingly never had heard of Dale Long. On Sunday night, he was on the verge of knocking Long from the baseball record book.

The New York Yankees first baseman tied Long’s 31-year-old major league record Saturday night when he hit a home run for the eighth consecutive game in the Yankees’ 7-2 loss to the Texas Rangers at Arlington, Tex. Mattingly, who has 10 home runs during the streak, was going for a record ninth at Arlington Stadium Sunday night.

The record-tying homer, Mattingly’s 18th, was an opposite-field drive to left leading off the fourth. It was cheered as far away as New York’s Shea Stadium, where it was shown almost instantaneously on the replay screen there while the Mets where playing the Cincinnati Reds.

Long was happy for Mattingly, too.

“He’s a helluva guy. If you have to have your record broken, he’s the type of guy you’d want to do it,” said Long, a first baseman who hit home runs in eight consecutive games for the Pittsburgh Pirates from May 19-28, 1956.

Long, now a field representative for the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, played 10 years in the major leagues, finishing his career, interestingly, with the Yankees in 1963.

“I wish him luck on Sunday, but at the same time I don’t,” Long said. “I held the record myself for 31 years, now I’d like to go down in history as Mattingly and Long.”

Long apparently wasn’t well known enough to catch Mattingly’s attention prior to this weekend. Asked before Saturday night’s game if he had ever heard of the former Pirate, Cub, Senator and Yankee, he replied: “Nope. When did he play?”

Told his career was mostly in the 1950s, Mattingly, 26, replied: “I was born in the ‘60s.”

Mattingly’s home run, which just got over the glove of left-fielder Pete Incaviglia, came off right-hander Jose Guzman and was followed by a homer by Claudell Washington. They accounted for the Yankees’ only runs of the game.

“I had a two-run lead so I didn’t want to walk anybody,” Guzman said. “It was a 2-and-0 count, so I needed to throw a strike. I threw it down and away. I don’t know how he hit it out. I thought it was a good pitch, but I’m in the record book.”

Guzman’s pitch didn’t fool Mattingly.

“It was the pitch I was looking for,” Mattingly said. “It was running away. I hit it good, but I didn’t think it was going out. I thought he had caught it, especially when the crowd cheered.”

Long gave his bat to the Hall of Fame as soon as his streak ended, and it’s still there. Mattingly says he won’t turn over his bat until it breaks.

“And maybe not even then,” he said.