In Kansas City last July, when Don Mattingly was still stinging from the George Steinbrenner-orchestrated criticism in the New York media, he talked about the Yankees, and he talked about freedom.

Mattingly's five-year contract was coming to a close. Freedom, it seemed he was saying then, had everything to do with leaving Steinbrenner for a new start.

"I have the choice," he said, emphasizing the first and last words. "I can do what I want."

What 34-year-old Don Mattingly apparently chooses to do now is play no more. For anyone. For now.

Though Mattingly has yet to confirm or deny that he is going to at least try retirement, as was reported by The New York Times, this has the look of much more than rumor.

Contacted Monday, Mattingly's agent, Ray Schulte, said the Yankees' first baseman was vacationing with his family and an announcement would be made through the Yankees today.

Conclude what you like, but suffice to say if he were re-signing with the Yankees for 1996, or signing with another team, this probably is not how it would be handled.

In recent days, speculation grew that the Yankees would acquire another first baseman, such as Seattle's Tino Martinez, Atlanta's Fred McGriff or Oakland's Mark McGwire.

And perhaps Mattingly saw his "choice," as it were, slipping away. To remain unsigned after the Yankees acquire another first baseman would be to feel as though he had been unconditionally released.

He didn't need that, even if he has little or no desire to play elsewhere - something Mattingly may not have yet completely resolved in his own mind.

So what's going on? A good possibility is a sabbatical. Hey, it's all the rage in pro sports. And it would make sense.

Mattingly has a painful back and wrist and, because of those hurts, an aching frustration.

Ten years ago, Mattingly was the American League's Most Valuable Player as he hit 35 home runs, drove in 145 runs and batted .324. Only his technical talents allowed him to coax a .288 batting average and to continue to rain doubles this past season.

The game is much harder than it once was, and that takes a mental toll as well.

During this last and lengthy baseball strike, Mattingly discovered how much he enjoyed being at home with his family. And, at the end of this season, he met a previously unmet goal as the Yankees made the playoffs.

All these things - and somewhere in the mix is Ryne Sandberg's retirement and return (a mental safety net, if nothing else) - may be conspiring to create an exit stage left from No. 23's familiar and golden place at first base in the Bronx.

Which brings up something Mattingly told me in September of 1994, when he should have been driving the Yankees to the AL East Division title, but was instead in Evansville steering a golf cart.

"I've enjoyed being home, to tell you the truth," he said during the season-ending players' strike. "There's a good side to it."

A few months later, as the delayed '95 spring training was about to begin, Mattingly dropped more clues:

"I learned a lot about how I'll feel when I'm done playing. Outside of the pure baseball end of it - I missed the competition - I've been having fun.

"I know I don't have to keep playing. I don't think I'll spend a lot of time looking back. But, in the same breath, I still feel strong about playing and my training."

I believed he did feel strong about his playing - as strong as he could feel given the myriad and mixed up circumstances surrounding his team and baseball as a whole.

Now, as both his team and the game remain as confused as ever - Steinbrenner has more compassion and, apparently use, for ex-Mets Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden than the Yankee Captain - perhaps Mattingly is out of breath.

So he sits back and contemplates life without baseball and, for now, he likes what he feels.

But maybe it feels one way during the holiday season and will feel quite another way in early March, when his hands are still soft instead of callused from all those swings in the batting cages.

Perhaps Mattingly had a plan to follow ex-Yankees manager and friend Buck Showalter to his next managing gig, a plan that doesn't work - or is greatly delayed - since Showalter will not have a team on the field until 1998 as manager of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks.

"I have the choice," I hear Mattingly saying. "I can do what I want."

So maybe what he wants most is time to consider if he needs to play again. Maybe Mattingly himself has no idea what conclusion he will reach.

By DON WADE, Courier columnist

Copyright© 1995 The Evansville Courier, a Scripps Howard newspaper