IT'S BEEN SO WISTFUL for Don Mattingly for so long. He'd speak of wanting just the chance to compete for the prize. He'd deny the disappointment of a distinguished career without the great reward and his denial underlined the fact. Now he's talking about the end.

It's too bad. Donnie, we hardly knew ye. We hardly knew just how good you could be and we thought you could have been one of the best.

This is kind of premature obituary. There are 17 games remaining on the Yankees' schedule. It's ironic that now that he has so little left, the Yankees might actually get into October on the wild card. It was ironic last season, when he still had something going and the Yankees appeared headed for the playoffs, there was the strike.

Now he's been dropping hints. First he said he'd think about playing in Japan or any place where baseball was fun because it wasn't fun on the Yankees anymore with the owner fostering the idea that Mattingly wasn't worth the price to sign him next season. Oh, Mattingly said later it really wasn't what he meant, but it was probably thinking out loud. Last week he spoke warmly about Andy Pettitte's future and added, "I probably won't be around to see it."

Monday night after the opener of the series in Cleveland he came much closer to the point with Al Trautwig's post-game microphone. "It's a situation where I feel like it's my last 20 games with the Yankees and I really want to be on the field," he said. "I don't want to spend it sitting in the dugout, you know. It's time to go."

Last night he chose to put a different spin on it. "It doesn't matter what I meant," he said. By last night he'd decided he was putting a positive focus on the remainder of the season for himself and for the team. But the conclusion is inescapable. He'd like to go out with some kind of blaze of glory, but is reconciled to going out.

Jim Leyritz, who doesn't know how to disguise his thoughts, came by and asked for Mattingly's autograph on a ball. "This could be our last ball together," he said.

They laughed. Leyritz added, "Maybe we'll both be gone together."

"Oh?" Mattingly said. "You'll be in Indiana?"

It sounded like kidding on the square.

Mattingly's been stewing with the situation, balancing his hopes against the bind his presence lays on Buck Showalter. The manager's admiration of Mattingly goes way back, but the manager needed some bang out of the first baseman. He settles for whatever emotional lift Mattingly gives.

Players want to get him to October. He'd always worked himself almost to a fault, selling himself each spring that they could win something when they couldn't. In 1993 the Yankees made a nice run at the Blue Jays with Mattingly leading the charge for two months of delight. "When was the last time I missed a game because of my back?" he demanded then. "Four years ago. I can still hit."

He was loving the demands of the race, of every at-bat meaning something. "I love this," he said. "I play for this. If you're prepared, you shouldn't be nervous. When you're prepared, you're not afraid. The pitcher is out there trying to get me out; I'm trying to get a hit. I'm willing to compete. I'm not afraid of that. I can compete."

And then he stopped. For the last six weeks of the season he hit .228. Eighteen times the Yankees had been tied for first place; they finished second, seven games behind Toronto. "I can't make excuses for what I did in September," he reflected afterward.. "I did what I did."

Early in this season there was his eye condition. Mattingly probably shouldn't have played and Showalter probably shouldn't have asked, but they have this mutual admiration.

When the eyes cleared, however much they cleared, Mattingly struggled to find himself. He had a flurry for a month and then he had to sit down again with back problems Aug. 24.

He's played with a wince for every twist. During that flurry he hit a few home runs. On Cap Day he brought a shower of giveaway hats in appreciation of a home run that turned a game. He is the captain. Mostly he's slapped at the ball, felt for it, hitting it inside-out to leftfield. His best shots die short of the warning track.

The shower of caps came out of recognition of what he had been and hopes that he could escape the identification as a pinstriped Ernie Banks, destined to play this distinguished career without ever getting to any of the grand showcases.

It's painful to dwell on what might have been. Players with his kind of talent and work ethic should get to play out their careers. Mattingly is 34 years old. His first six seasons were incandescent. The last six have been in pain. The story is that there was a day in Milwaukee in 1987, an old-timers' day, when Bobby Murcer came out to take batting practice with the old people and said Mattingly had just hurt his back wrestling with a hangaround pitcher named Bob Shirley. And there it went.

Mattingly has heatedly denied that was how he hurt his back, but you can draw a line across his career right there. He learned to live with it and play with it, but on a different level. He hasn't driven the ball for six seasons now. For six seasons he was on a straight line to Cooperstown. For 10 years he had the best career of any player in New York.

Mattingly learned to endure the pain in the neck, too. He made a lot of money playing for Steinbrenner. He's playing out a contract for $19.3 million over the last five seasons. Another year at that rate for that production could be justified only out of loyalty, which is not Steinbrenner's way of business.

Mattingly has always given the last full measure of effort. "He stands for what we're trying to accomplish here," Showalter said last night.

The other day Mattingly was denying interest in Japan or St. Louis, where little boys in Evansville, Ind., often fix their dreams. He likened his situation to his father's retirement from the post office. "He didn't want to work any more, so he retired," Mattingly said.

Simple as that. He's put the last pressure on himself for this stretch. "It's important for our club to get after it this season and these games right now," he said for the mike. "And from there we move on."

It hurts Mattingly to play. It hurts him to be an ordinary player. He could mean nothing else. Steve Jacobson

Copyright 1995, Newsday Inc.