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PHILADELPHIA -- Baseball has always been a family affair for Don Mattingly -- but never quite like this.
Named the Phillies’ new bench coach on Monday, Mattingly officially joined the same organization for which his son Preston already serves as the general manager.
“When Preston and I get together, it seems like we’ll talk about the kids for a little bit and we’ll talk about whatever, and it always ends up baseball at the end of it,” the elder Mattingly said. “[Talking] about this guy or that guy, ‘What do you think about this? What do you think about that?’ So, it’s pretty cool in that sense.”
However, none of this may have been possible if not for one of Mattingly’s other sons.
The 64-year-old Mattingly went into last season -- one in which he served as the Blue Jays’ bench coach -- fully expecting it to be his last.
But young Louis Mattingly had other ideas.
“As the season went on, I think as much as anything, my youngest -- Louis, who just turned 11 -- was kind of like, ‘Dad, you can’t stop. You’ve got to keep going,’” Don Mattingly said. “And I was like, ‘Uhh, I don’t know about this.’”
It proved to be an important message for Mattingly.
“It’s kind of crazy to listen to an 11-year-old, but just his feelings on all of that [matter], because he’s paying a price for everything that I do in this,” he said. “Your kids pay that price of you being gone, him in school, moving back and forth -- it all puts him in a different spot.”
Preston Mattingly knows that as well as anyone. He was born in 1987 -- just six years into his father’s 14-year playing career, spent entirely with the Yankees. Don Mattingly has remained around the game since retiring as a player following the 1995 season, first as a guest instructor at Spring Training before beginning his coaching career in 2004 as the Yankees’ hitting coach.
He later served as a manager for the Dodgers (2011-15) and Marlins (2016-22) before joining the Blue Jays' coaching staff in ’23.
Despite his nearly 40 years of service as a player, coach or manager, Mattingly remains on the hunt for an elusive World Series title. He came close as Toronto’s bench coach last season before the Dodgers’ stunning Game 7 rally.
“Obviously, the Preston factor, I think having that opportunity is interesting to be able to work alongside him,” Mattingly said. “Like last year, it was like, ‘I hope we play Philly in the World Series,’ so we could go head to head with him. But now, it’s nice to be on the same team.”
The hope is to finally accomplish his career-long dream alongside his son.
“To be able to do it with him would be incredible,” Don said.
Of course, there’s also the other side of the father-son dynamic. Whereas Don Mattingly will be in the clubhouse and interacting with the players on a daily basis, his son is tasked with helping make personnel decisions that may not always sit well with certain players.
“The other side was something that I was concerned about right away,” Don acknowledged. “I talked with [president of baseball operations] Dave [Dombrowski] about that. Preston is kind of at the beginning of his career, I’m at the end of my career – so I don’t want this to be a negative in any way for him.”
Dombrowski quashed any potential concerns last month at the Winter Meetings when the idea of adding Mattingly to the staff first surfaced.
Regardless, it’s a new obstacle that Mattingly plans to be particularly cognizant of as he enters a new clubhouse.
“I’m very protective of the locker room relationship. With players, they have to be able to trust that I’m not a voice that’s just running upstairs and talking about anything and everything,” he said. “That’s just not the way I operate. I came from a different era where that is not something that happens. I’m going to have to build that trust with players so that they’ll trust me that that’s not going to happen.”
At the end of the day, Mattingly and everyone in that clubhouse -- from manager Rob Thomson to all of the players -- has one shared goal: Win the World Series.
“I have committed to a couple of years with ‘Thomps’ and just go from there,” Mattingly said. “I’m assuming that would be it for me, but you never say never.”
Plus, he’ll have to check with Louis first.