NEW YORK - It is the burden of the New York Yankees to wear asterisks, real and imagined.

For Roger Maris, the man harassed for excelling at the plate by hitting 61 home runs in a season, the asterisk was like a yoke. It signaled the fact that he needed more games than Babe Ruth to exceed Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs, and it forever stigmatized for Maris both the experience and the achievement.

Don Mattingly had his own form of asterisk, not one in the record books but one that signified something not in the record books.It hung above his name in the form of empathy from teammates, competitors and fans, signifying a glaring omission in his career that increased in urgency with each passing game this season.

Mattingly was traversing his 14th and perhaps final season in pinstripes. And he still had not played a single inning in a post-season game.

All that was to end last night when the Yankees, the American League wild card entry, faced the Seattle Mariners in Game 1 of their three-of-five playoff series.

``It's a relief for me to take that asterisk away from my name,'' Mattingly said the other day. ``I've always kind of resented it.''

Yet even though Mattingly now wishes for the world to focus on a bigger picture - that of a team that has not played in a post-season game since 1981, or won a World Series since 1978 - he will remain a focal point as well as a sentimental favorite because, well, he's earned it.

His wait lasted 1,785 regular-season games, more games than any Yankee had to endure before playing in the post-season. Fans of baseball in general obviously cared about that. They rooted for Mattingly, willed him to avoid the fate that Ernie Banks could not (2,528 games for Mr. Cub, but none in October's most precious second season).

The touchy-feelies abounded to such an extent that Roger Clemens, of the arch-rival Red Sox, said this before his post-season start against Cleveland Tuesday night: ``I'm happy for a guy like Don Mattingly. He's going to get a chance to experience what we've been experiencing for a number of years and have that feeling.''

Clemens even went so far as to say that the entire Yankees team may deserve to advance since New York was derailed by the players' strike - their own strike - last year. And with that he has been joined by the most hard-bitten commentators in print, TV and radio alike.

Contrast the outpouring of sentiment for Mattingly to the plight of Andres Galarraga, another veteran who also ended a career-long absence from the playoffs, covering 1,308 games, when the Colorado Rockies won the NL wild card last weekend. Yet that talented first baseman has gotten only slight mention. Mattingly, whose numbers are dwarfed by The Big Cat's this season, has gotten headlines as well as hosannas.

This is all the more intriguing considering that fans in general worked long and hard all season to let baseball know that they no longer unconditionally love the sport or the bulk of its participants. Yet they opened their hearts for the precious few, most notably Cal Ripken and Mattingly.

Perhaps this is because Mattingly's long march wound through New York and automatically became larger than life. But maybe, just maybe, Mattingly captured people's imaginations for the same reasons Ripken did.

As Ripken approached and then surpassed Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak, he was lauded because of his old-fashioned work ethic, his attention to detail. Ripken was seen as an artist as well as an athlete who never spared maximum effort while gladly settling for a minimum of hype.

The same can be said of Mattingly. The consummate worker, the master afield, he never cheated his employers or his fans one single day. Not in lost seasons, not even in the early days of the spring. Whenever he put on the glove, Mattingly, like Ozzie Smith, made even the most casual infield practices in February something worth paying to see.

So, as this season unfolded, and it became clear that it was perhaps Mattingly's last chance, the passion about Mattingly grew, as did his own anticipation.

And when he at last got a chance to put the asterisk aside for good last night, those 1,785 games no longer stood like so many sentries guarding 13 years of frustration. They now stand as 1,785 testaments to a work in progress that has finally been made whole. By CLAIRE SMITH

Copyright 1995 The New York Times