Of course, it was his bat, not his glove, that attracted everybody's attention. And in 1981, while playing for the Nashville Sounds, Don Mattingly treated Southern League pitching just like he'd treated all other pitching, from Little League on up.
He feasted on it.
Mattingly, two years out of Memorial High School and two years away from earning a spot in the New York Yankees' starting lineup, batted .316 in 141 games with Nashville. He didn't show much power — he hit just seven home runs — but he led the league with 35 doubles, led the Sounds with 98 runs batted in and made the Southern League all-star team.
On Thursday, the Sounds will honor one of their most famous alumni with a Don Mattingly Night at Greer Stadium in Nashville. Mattingly's uniform number 18 will be retired and a large banner sporting the number will be unveiled and placed on display in the stadium.
Mattingly and his wife, Kim, who live in Evansville, are scheduled to attend the ceremonies, which will start at 6:30, before the Sounds'game against the New Orleans Zephyrs.
Mattingly will be the first former Sounds player to have his number retired, but it won't be the first time he's been so honored. Two years ago, the Yankees retired the number he wore with them, 23.
Mattingly, 38, had an illustrious 13-year career with the Yankees. When he retired after the 1996 season, with a career average of .307, he ranked among the Yankees' all-time favorites and all-time leaders in more than a dozen offensive and defensive departments.
In 1984, just three years after he left Nashville, he led the American League in hitting, with a .343 average. The next season, when he batted .324 with 211 hits, 48 doubles, 35 homers and 145 RBIs, he was selected as the league's Most Valuable Player.
He also won eight Gold Glove Awards as the AL's best fielding first baseman and was the Yankees' team captain from 1991 through 1995.
Mattingly was drafted by the Yankees in June of 1979, a few days after graduating from Memorial — but not until the 19th round.
He quickly showed other teams what they'd missed.
That summer, in 53 games with Class A Oneonta, N.Y, he hit .349. The next year, in his first full pro season, he hit .358 for Class A Greensboro, N.C., and won the South Atlantic League batting crown.
Despite his impressive batting averages, the knock against Mattingly early in his career was that he couldn't run and he didn't hit for power. In his first two pro seasons, he had just 10 stolen bases and 12 home runs.
It wasn't until he moved up to double-A Nashville in the spring of 1981 that Mattingly began to believe he had a real future in the game.
"It was then that I started to think about the big leagues and I began to pay attention to whom the Yankees drafted and whom they signed as a free agent,'' Mattingly recalled in an interview a couple of years ago.
"One time (former Yankees first baseman) Joe Pepitone was in Nashville and he told me 'they're gonna call you up one day.' And then Yogi (Berra, the former Yankees manager and Hall of Fame catcher) came down there because of the (big-league players') strike and supposedly he liked the way I played.''
In '81, everybody in the organization liked the way Mattingly played.
He outhit every Sounds player except one: a young outfielder named Willie McGee. McGee batted .322 and went on to have a pretty good big-league career, too.
Another Sounds player, Buck Showalter, hit .264 that season. He later managed Mattingly with the Yankees and now manages the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Mattingly's fine season with the Sounds earned him the Yankees' Minor League Player of the Year Award. He spent the 1982 season and part of '83 with triple-A Columbus, then joined the Yankees for good and became one of the best players of his generation.
Thursday night, Mattingly will be back in Nashville, which is now the triple-A home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The first 2,000 fans who pass through the turnstiles will receive commemorative reprints of Mattingly's 1981 Sounds baseball card. Team officials said they expect a crowd of about 8,000; Greer Stadium seats 12,000.
Executive Sports Director, Dave Johnson
Copyright 1999 by Evansville Courier
1999, Joseph Riccitelli, Jr.