In a separate thread I mentioned that I was going to have the privilege of meeting Don Mattingly yesterday. In response to that comment, one of the forum members commented “I hope you had a good time meeting Don and have some stories to share with us.” Well, I thought I would just take a moment to share a few things from the experience.

My opportunity to meet Mr. Mattingly came via a friend who was helping get a number of baseballs signed by “The Hit Man”. My friend was going to meet Mr. Mattingly in San Francisco and was gracious enough to offer me the opportunity to come along. Obviously, I accepted the invitation. So, yesterday we drove to Parc 55 hotel in San Francisco and meet Mr. Mattingly for the signing. My buddy and I got everything prepared as there were quite few baseballs to be signed. While we were scheduled to meet at 10:00, I have had athletes keep me waiting before so I was mentally prepared to wait if that were the case. However, at almost exactly 10:00, Mr. Mattingly entered the conference room where we had everything set up. Notably, after spending some time getting to know him, I think the reason Mr. Mattingly was right on time was out of respect to my friend and I (even though he didn’t actually know us personally).

We ended up spending almost an hour in the room together as Mr. Mattingly signed the baseballs and we got to chat about everything from family, sports, current players and even pets. Ironically, my friend who invited me to the signing has a dog that was sprayed by a skunk that very morning. Much to my amazement, when my friend mentioned his dog getting sprayed, Mr. Mattingly immediately got on his cell phone to call a friend to confirm the best way to help get rid of the smell. It struck me right away that Mr. Mattingly, despite all his notoriety, was genuinely a really nice guy. In fact, my friend mentioned that he had once meet Mr. Mattingly about 20 years earlier (my friend is also friends with Reggie Jackson) and that my friend was asked to drive Mr. Mattingly somewhere. One of the things my friend remembered was Mr. Mattingly reaching over to unlock his door when he was getting ready to get in the car. While that may not seem like a big deal, I believe there are some athletes that wouldn’t think to do such a thing. Along those lines, my friend commented that the action confirmed his overall impression of what a nice guy Mr. Mattingly was.

I am sure there are a number of people on these boards who are like me in that they are more impressed with an individual’s strength of character than they are someone’s physical abilities. With that said, I was enormously impressed with “Donnie Baseball”. From his genuinely kind demeanor, to his interest in hearing about mine and my friends’ families, to his kindly taking the time to autograph a few items for my friend and I after the signing, it was great to see such a fantastic athlete also be such a good guy. In fact, though he didn’t receive a return call about the dog during the signing, my friend got a text message from Mr. Mattingly right after we left with a potential remedy for my friend’s situation. True to my impression of his character, Mr. Mattingly obviously sent the text to my friend as soon as he received the return call.

On a side note, Mr. Mattingly looked like he was in great shape. In fact, I was wondering what he would do to a baseball if we hit the diamond together and I tossed a few pitches at him. While that would be an awesome experience, I think it’s much better for my ego never to find out.

-Chris