Don Mattingly makes it to World Series in 39th season of professional baseball

TORONTO (AP) — Reaching the World Series for the first time at the end of his 39th season in professional baseball, Don Mattingly gives more than advice to Toronto manager John Schneider. Donnie Baseball provides cover.

On the night before Game 3 of the Division Series, Schneider brought Mattingly along for dinner at Patsy’s, an old Frank Sinatra favorite Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan. A visiting manager about to take on the Yankees figured he shouldn't be out alone in New York.

“I went with Donnie on purpose, so they went after him, not me,” Schneider said. “It was great. A Donnie special.”

Mattingly will be Schneider's bench coach when the Blue Jays open the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night, in his 10th season as a coach along with 17 as a professional player and 12 as a big league manager.

“It feels good. Obviously, it feels good to get here,” he said Thursday. “I don’t know how else to say it. It felt great.”

Mattingly was drafted by the Yankees in 1979 and he spent 14 big league seasons in the Bronx. He's frequently referred to as the Greatest Yankees Player Never to Win a Title, which comes up when people mention Aaron Judge could eclipse him for that unwanted moniker.

“I can’t think about it. It’s too late now, right?” said Mattingly, 64. “It is what it is as a player. It was different time, for sure. Only one year of my whole career was a wild card.”

He was hired as Schneider's bench coach ahead of the 2023 season, just after leaving his job as Miami's manager, and had the additional role of offensive coordinator in 2024. The 45-year-old Schneider grew up in New Jersey during Mattingly's playing days.

“I had the Hit Man poster in my room, the pinstripe suit," Schneider said, thinking back to the 1980s Converse ad campaign that pictured Mattingly in a white pinstriped suit while holding a bat as if it were a Tommy gun. “We took a picture at Yankee Stadium after we won that series and I sent it to him and I said: 8-year-old me is pretty pumped up right now.”

Mattingly debuted with the Yankees in 1982, a year after they lost to the Dodgers in the World Series.

A six-time All-Star, nine-time Gold Glove first baseman, MVP and AL batting champion, Mattingly captained the Yankees in his final five seasons. He never reached the playoffs until 1995, when he hit .417 with a homer and six RBIs in the five-game Division Series loss to Seattle.

Mattingly put the Yankees ahead with a tiebreaking, two-run double in the sixth inning of Game 5 but David Cone blew the lead in the eighth inning. Seattle won on Edgar Martinez's 11th-inning RBI double. Mattingly would have been up second in the 12th.

One month later, Mattingly told the Yankees they should find another first baseman for 1996, and New York went on to win its first title since 1978. Mattingly announced his retirement in January 1997, and his No. 23 was retired that summer. He returned to the Yankees as a coach from 2004-07 under manager Joe Torre and interviewed to succeed Torre but lost out to Joe Girardi.

Mattingly followed Torre to the Dodgers as a coach for three seasons, then succeeded his old boss as manager and held the job for five years.

Clayton Kershaw, the longest-tenured Dodgers player at 18 seasons, was drafted in 2006 in the same class as Mattingly's son Preston, now the Philadelphia Phillies' general manager. Kershaw said Don had the same dugout demeanor as Torre.

“Every day he was the same guy. He knew what to say. He didn’t say a ton," Kershaw said. "There wasn’t a lot of like, `Hey, pat you on the back,' or, `Hey, great job.' It was almost like an expected professionalism that he expected from us.”

Mattingly's Dodgers were knocked out in the NL Championship Series in 2013 and in the Division Series the following two years. He left after the 2015 season and signed with the low-budget Miami Marlins. He departed after the 2022 season, having reached the playoffs only in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, when he was voted NL Manager of the Year.

“It's really about the players and it’s really about help helping them any way you can and you’re in a sense a servant,” he said. “You want to have that heart that’s for somebody else. Your success only comes through them.”

Mattingly's production had been diminished by back injuries since at least 1990, and he finished with a .307 career average, 222 homers and 1,099 RBIs. His numbers were close to those of Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett, who batted .318 with 207 homers and 1,085 RBIs in 12 years with Minnesota

“I think I remember last year looking up his numbers, his stats, 'cause I knew he was a great player but I never knew how great the numbers really were.” Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement said, “For his time in the major leagues he was one of the best.”

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Toronto Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly speaks during a World Series baseball media day, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Toronto. The Toronto Blue Jays face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 on Friday. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Toronto Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly speaks during a World Series baseball media day, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Toronto. The Toronto Blue Jays face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 on Friday. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Toronto Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly speaks during a World Series baseball media day, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Toronto. The Toronto Blue Jays face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 on Friday. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Toronto Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly speaks during a World Series baseball media day, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Toronto. The Toronto Blue Jays face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 on Friday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their space station mission more than a month early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.

SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the International Space Station.

“It’s so good to be home,” said NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, the capsule commander.

It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.

Cardman and NASA’s Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who had the health problem or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.

While the astronaut was stable in orbit, NASA wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board. It was not immediately known when the astronauts would fly from California to their home base in Houston. Platonov’s return to Moscow was also unclear.

NASA stressed repeatedly over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on Jan. 7, prompting NASA to call off the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return. It was the first time NASA cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians had done so decades ago.

The space station has gotten by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. NASA said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian astronaut.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov is helped out of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui is helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

NASA astronaut Zena Cardman is helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 capsule being taken into the recovery vessel after crew members re entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows NASA astronaut Mike Fincke getting helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows NASA Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui being helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows Russian astronaut Oleg Platonov being helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, left, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke, Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui are seen inside the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON shortly after having landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows NASA astronaut Zena Cardman being helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This photo provided by NASA shows clockwise from bottom left are, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui gathering for a crew portrait wearing their Dragon pressure suits during a suit verification check inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows recovery vessels approaching the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 capsule to evacuate one of the crew members after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 members re entering the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 members re entering the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)