What Did Baseball Ever Do to Deserve a Guy Like This?

We spend so much time reading--and, sorry to say, writing--about ballplayers who do cocaine, drive drunk, smuggle pills, abuse women, want their contracts renegotiated, refuse to report, feud with their bosses, feud with their teammates and feud with the press that we can only sit back with an appreciative sigh and wonder:

What did we ever do to deserve Don Mattingly?

Imagine, a New York superstar who has never committed a felony, never overslept, never called himself any sort of straw, and, to our recollection, never called George Steinbrenner by any name other than “George.” What an upset.

How splendid, then, that someone such as this enjoys the success that Mattingly enjoys. When he socks 10 home runs in eight games, good for him. More power to him. When he makes 22 putouts in one night, yeah, Mattingly. Good things come to those who play first base and wait. Mattingly might not be able to hold out forever. Someday, he is apt to turn into one of those ogres of ego who believes that nothing he does is wrong, or that anything he does off the field is strictly his own business.

New Yorkers would forgive him for it, of course. New Yorkers forgive anyone who steps into a batter’s box wearing one of their uniforms. They have a reputation for being America’s meanest fans, but quite the opposite is true. Ask Keith Hernandez or Dwight Gooden how nasty their fans were when they were rewarded with standing ovations for giving their coke spoons a rest.

Mattingly made a few people uneasy when he took the Yankees to arbitration and demanded a contract worth close to $2 million a year. He clearly was worth a lot of money--in a sport where Julio Cruz can become as wealthy as Daddy Warbucks, Mattingly probably should have asked for the Chrysler Building--but anytime a celebrity pulls down that sort of paycheck, great things are expected of him, and he had better deliver.

How, skeptics wondered, could Mattingly improve upon, or even keep pace with, his feats of the previous three seasons. His hit totals had been 207, 211 and 238. His homer totals: 23, 35 and 31. His batting averages: .343, .324 and .352. His RBI totals: 110, 145 and 113. Talk about consistent. His fielding percentages were .995, .995 and .995.

There was enough pressure on Mattingly to begin with, and even more when General Steinbrenner decreed that for that kind of money, Mattingly had better come through. Reggie Jackson was a winner, said Steinbrenner, who had considerably different things to say about Jackson when Reggie wanted out. If Mattingly wants to be paid like Jackson, he had better play like Jackson.

Well, in case no one has heard, here are a couple of bulletins about Reggie Jackson. The best batting average of his life was .300. His lifetime average was .263, which, once this season is over, will be marked down like a discount suit. Jackson’s best RBI year was 118, and he did that 18 years ago. Forgive some of us if we are slow to worship at the altar of the almighty Reggie.

Mattingly has miles to go, of course. As recently as 1983, he was playing baseball in Columbus, Ohio. The next spring, he wasn’t even assured of a full-time job. Steinbrenner and his cavalcade of managers had no idea what to do with Mattingly, or where to put him, in left field, at first base, in the DH spot, or where.

In retrospect, he probably could have solved the shortstop problems the Yankees have been having. You think not? In 1983, during the 91 games Mattingly managed to stay out of Columbus, he even played a little second base for the Yankees, and last season he even showed what he could do at third. Don Mattingly doesn’t let a little thing like being left-handed keep him from being an all-around ballplayer.

The amazing thing about him is the power. Here is a guy who signed a professional contract in 1979, and for the next five seasons never once had a homer total in double figures. Now, as of his recent record-breaking binge, Mattingly has hit 111 dingers in the majors, and just as a point of reference, Mike Marshall, a slugger from the word go, just connected for his 100th the other night. Mattingly is only a few behind Kent Hrbek, Leon Durham and Darryl Strawberry, and is a mere 25 years old.

Being humble isn’t easy when one is young and the object of great adulation. Even unconsciously, a gifted individual can come off as a braggart, as Wade Boggs did recently when he said he could belt 35 or 40 homers if he chose to, but his batting average would plummet to .310. Boggs didn’t mean anything by it, and one would be hard-pressed to disagree with anything he said.

Mattingly is conscious of what he has accomplished, but never crows about it. He is hardly Dale Murphy bashful or Gary Carter happy, but neither is he George Bell grumpy or Dave Kingman dopey. And, in something of an upset in these modern times, he has shown no sign of being sneezy.

Be thankful, therefore, that he is not a jerk, and be hopeful that he does not become one. The closest brush he had with trouble was more of a boys-will-be-boys type stunt in May of 1985, when he was arrested for urinating in public late one night in Kansas City, Mo. The charges were later dropped.

Other than that, Mattingly is not particularly colorful, which undoubtedly works in his favor. He rarely gets misinterpreted that way. Babe Ruth is remembered as everything from a god to a buffoon, but a Lou Gehrig detractor is hard to find.

When Mattingly recently tied Dale Long’s long-standing record for home runs in consecutive games, he knew better than to shout out, “Who the heck is Dale Long?” but was honest enough to acknowledge that until he was in mid-streak and Long’s name was first broached, he had never heard of the man. Long was gracious about Mattingly getting half of his record, and Mattingly likewise pumped Long’s hand and congratulated him on the record’s endurance.

One gets an impression, watching Don Mattingly, that there is very little that he could not handle, including failure. It is incredibly difficult to picture him losing his cool in a playoff game and berating a coach, as Bobby Grich did, or snapping at people and sulking after letting a World Series grounder go through his legs, as Bill Buckner did. Then again, those guys are human, with human frailties. Possibly we will see Mattingly’s someday.

Until then, we will accentuate the positive for a change, dwelling on a man’s successes. Don Mattingly can hit all the home runs he wants, make all the putouts he wants, make all the money he wants. We hope he hits up Steinbrenner for $4 million next time.