Toronto - One banner here said simply, "Mattingly is God." Well, that might be an exaggeration. By now, He probably would have played in at least one playoff game.

Baseball's most famous dry spell is now at an even 1,800 games. In all likelihood, it will end today at 1,801.

Mattingly, who has endured 13-plus years of the blustering and suffocating George Steinbrenner and the tough and swarming New York media, plus at least six years of back pain, yesterday pulled within arm's reach of his personal nirvana: the postseason.

Barring a last-minute disaster, Mattingly will play in his first playoff game Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. On that day, all New York rejoices. On that day, Mattingly gets to stop hearing about Ernie Banks and Ferguson Jenkins and all the other talented players who had the misfortune to share the field with untalented teammates.

In another Yankees era, Mattingly might have played in a half-dozen World Series by now. But whether he knows it or not, there is at least one side benefit to his misfortune. Mattingly's mystique assuredly has been enhanced by his curse. If not for his sheer bad luck, he never could have reached martyr status.

Another sign said, "#23, The Pride of the Yankees, 110 Percent Class." Mattingly has been cheered the last couple of days as if he's Canadian, although his southern Indiana roots have little in common with Ontario.

On Friday, three beer-guided young fans ran onto the field and knelt in the first-base coaching box to give Mattingly the Wayne and Garth sign of respect, the one accompanied by the words "We're not worthy," and usually accorded somebody cool like Alice Cooper. The Generation Xers bowed their heads and swayed their hands when Mattingly singled in the ninth inning. Mattingly was batting a soft .287 when he received the misguided and illegal tribute, and he has 57 home runs this decade. Quite obviously, the respect for Mattingly cannot be measured in statistics.

The Yankees' captain is a pleasant and forthright fellow, always kind and generous to fans. But like most of us, he is far from perfect. He is a regular guy with admirable talent and desire, and a work ethic and pain threshold matched by few. He is a midwesterner who likes to wear jeans, play basketball and hang out with his buddies. He is no saint. This season, he has done a lot more complaining about his employers and waffling about his future than he has done hitting. When he and/or his team is slumping he has been known to be rude to reporters, although this trait is shared by most overcovered stars.

Mattingly's image far outstrips the man - or any man. The image grew with the curse.

People feel sorry for him. People feel sorry that he had to play behind Dave LaPoint and Pascual Perez and Dale Mohorcic and Wade Taylor. People feel sorry for him for all he has endured. People feel sorry because he is a team player and because he never has gotten past early October.

Mattingly was acting calm in the clubhouse after the Yankees' 6-1 victory over the Blue Jays yesterday that clinched a tie for the American League's first wild-card opening. He was almost too calm. Here he is on the cusp of his first postseason game, possibly within hours of ending baseball's most famous and talked-about dry spell, and he is cooler than this town.

But inside, he is not so calm. "I'm sure I'm going to have trouble sleeping," he conceded. The night before, he tried watching some movies. He watched some Australian rules football. He liked that.

Mattingly sat in his stool in the corner of a cramped but neat clubhouse here, sipping his Labatt's beer and acting as if it's mid-June. Nobody could see his fire until somebody asked whether a wild card would mean as much as a division championship.

Mattingly turned to the veteran reporter, looked him in the eye and said, "I'll try to say this without anger. If you don't think this wild card is pennant-race baseball, then you don't know what you're talking about. Day-in and day-out, having to win . . . The whole idea is to get in. That's what a pennant race is."

The last thing Mattingly needs now is an asterisk by his first postseason appearance.

He wasn't planning to watch last night's Angels game, which could have clinched Mattingly's long-awaited dream. It's probably just as well, because the Angels won and the game didn't end until about 1 a.m. "I'm going to walk away from here today feeling we have to win the game [today]," he said. "At this moment, really I'm just trying to stay focused on what needs to get done [today]."

He kept saying these words, "We're not done." The idea that he uses the word "we" touches the fans. If Ripken stands for dependability, Mattingly stands for team play, and that is appreciated today.

Mattingly almost never discusses his plight, even among teammates.

They all know about it, think about it. They don't say a word. It's like when a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter and they don't want to jinx him.

"It's almost taboo around here even to talk about it," David Cone said. "Certainly, it's in the back of your minds."

Today it moves to the front. Heyman, Jon

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