The Fourteen Worst Years Available

Don Mattingly played fourteen seasons in the Bronx and managed to pick the fourteen worst ones available. The Yankees went to the World Series in 1981, the year before he arrived. They won it in 1996, the year after he left. Then they won three more. In between, Donnie Baseball got exactly one postseason series.

He made it count. The 1995 Division Series against Seattle, age 34, back already betraying him, and he went 10 for 24 with five extra-base hits. The Yankees lost in five. That is the entire October of his career, and it is one of the best short performances anyone has ever put up on the way out the door.

Before the back, he was as good as anyone alive. A batting title at .343 in his first full season. The 1985 MVP with 145 RBI, the highest total the league had seen in three decades. A .352 average and 238 hits the year after that. Six grand slams in 1987, a record nobody has broken. Nine Gold Gloves and a .996 career fielding percentage at first base.

Then he walked away at 34 and never came back. He has said since that people blame the back and they do not know. His boys were starting high school. He said if he had signed another contract, the older two would hardly have known him, and that he has no regrets about it. The back was real. The choice was still a choice.

The writers dropped him off the ballot in 2015. The Era Committee looked at him again this past December and gave him six votes out of sixteen. He gets another look in 2028. Cooperstown counts seasons, and Mattingly gave some of his away on purpose. Ask anyone who watched him whether that changes what he was.