Don Mattingly hasn’t relived or rewatched a whole lot of the World Series over the past seven months. He’s been a little busy.
“I lived through it once,” said the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies and former Blue Jays coach. “I know how it ended.”
We all know how it ended. We all deal with it in our own individual ways. It twisted our minds and guts last November. It twisted our minds and guts last December. It will continue to confuse and confound as this season muddles on as every 162-game season does in its own way until the Blue Jays can call a World Series their own.
Losing in Game 7 isn’t something that goes away easily. Losing in Game 7 in the heart-rendering, how-did-this-happen kind of way can be life-altering in the kind of way that sporting moments can somehow become life-altering.
Game 7 was Mattingly’s last night as a Blue Jay. When it ended in the silence of the noisiest Rogers Centre we’ve ever known, Mattingly did what he normally doesn’t do after games. He didn’t move. He stayed in the dugout. He wasn’t ready to leave, to head back to his coach’s office. This would have been the first big-league championship of his 40-plus years in baseball. Instead, he stared almost coldly out at the Los Angeles celebration on the field. He’s not exactly sure why, but it kind of makes sense to him now.
‘It’s a crash’
“If you’re the team that doesn’t get the last out, it’s a crash,” said Mattingly, back in Toronto on Monday for the first time since Game 7. “It doesn’t matter what the level is, or if it’s the first round, the feeling is the same.”
The feeling was different with the Blue Jays of a year ago. The feeling around the team, anyhow. They clobbered Mattingly’s old team, the New York Yankees, in the first round of the playoffs. In the second round, they had those special moments that championship teams tend to have: the George Springer home run becoming legendary. Then there was a World Series with everything but a Canadian parade. Everything but the perfect ending.
“You feel for those guys who laid their hearts out to do everything,” Mattingly said. “You’re really proud of that team, of those guys.”
The ending was symbolic after the Will Smith extra-innings home run. There was Mattingly and Bo Bichette, the last two Blue Jays in the dugout, the last two who were visual. Mattingly about to leave to go work for his son, the general manager of the Phillies. Bichette about to leave in free agency. It wasn’t anything planned, two popular Blue Jays about to depart, the last men standing.
“I’ve known Bo a long time. I always liked the way he played. I still like him,” Mattingly said.
Hot start as skipper
Bichette went to the Mets. Mattingly wound up as manager of the Phillies when the season didn’t start well for Canadian skipper Rob Thomson. So far the Phillies are 26-11 with Mattingly in charge heading into Monday night. That’s .703 baseball. That’s a short sample-size version of a 113-win season. That’s Donnie impossible Baseball accelerated and then some as the Blue Jays search to find .500 again with about 40% of the season now gone.
This is the best version of Mattingly as a big-league manager, says Mattingly. He managed the Dodgers and the Marlins before coming into a variety of coaching roles in his time with the Jays. In Toronto, he became a close friend and an admirer of Jays’ manager John Schneider, who was a Mattingly fan growing up. The two play a mutual admiration society game of sorts when talking about each other. Schneider says that hanging out with Mattingly was like hanging out with a genuine celebrity. He thinks the world of Mattingly.
“You couldn’t go anywhere where people didn’t know him,” Schneider said. “You forget how big a celebrity he really is. He’s a deserving Hall of Famer and I don’t know why he’s not in but he’s also a Hall of Fame kind of person. You can’t ask for anything more in a person than him.”
Mattingly also thinks the world of Schneider. He loves his approach to baseball, his aggressive managing style, the risk with which he runs his team, the way he utilizes his entire lineup.
“Toronto did a lot for me,” Mattingly said. Everything but the ending.
Some thought Mattingly might end up managing the Jays one day. Just not any more. If there is such a thing as best job in baseball, it’s working for your son. For a red-hot team. One year after almost winning your only World Series.
