Baseball and bloodlines lead Don and Preston Mattingly to the same place on Father's Day

Toronto Star

9 hours ago

This Father's Day comes with a bit of an edge for Preston Mattingly and his dad.
The Phillies are trying to sweep the Blue Jays: the son looking to best the father.
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Blue Jays coach Don Mattingly has been looking up to the executive suite at Citizens Bank Park this weekend and seeing his son Preston, who became general manager of the Phillies last fall.
'Preston has always loved sports,' said proud papa Don in an interview for the current episode of 'Deep Left Field,' the Star's baseball podcast. 'One of those kids that wakes up in the morning and has (ESPN's) 'SportsCenter' on and all that kind of stuff. He's been around not just this game but sports in general, and loves it. To see him doing well is really good.'
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Having a father who was not just successful in the game but a borderline Hall of Famer gave Preston a leg up, no question. But the Mattingly name can be a heavy one. When your nickname is Donnie Baseball, that comes with certain expectations for the progeny.
Mattingly saw that when his three older sons were playing. Preston is the middle child from Mattingly's first marriage.
'I was out of the game for a while and going to (Preston and older son Taylor's) games,' said the Jays' third-year bench coach. 'I felt for them. When they were playing baseball, I think the parents and other people think: Oh, he supposed to be good, he's supposed to be this. They don't allow them just to play.'
Preston said he doesn't remember people treating him any differently as the son of a New York Yankees legend, but looking back he can see it.
'Obviously being who he is, people probably look at me a little bit differently,' said the 37-year-old GM. 'But he was always great in letting me be myself and do my own thing. Never forced me or any of my brothers to play or do anything, and so with that there was no added pressure. Anything other people put on us externally, nothing came from him or my family.'
But Preston played anyway. Drafted 31st by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2006 — two years before his father became the team's hitting coach — the younger Mattingly got a million-dollar bonus and played six seasons in the minors (never reaching Double-A) before returning to school and playing college basketball at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Preston stayed in touch with Logan White, who was the scouting director with the Dodgers when he was drafted and had since moved to the San Diego Padres.
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'He was kind of in-between, like what he was going to do,' said Don, who was managing the Miami Marlins at that time. 'He came down to spring training with me for about a week and then San Diego called to interview him.'
Preston picked up the story.
'I flew out to Arizona (to the Padres' spring training facility) and met with (White) and some of the members of the front office and they offered me a job. I started in scouting and worked my way into different various front-office roles ... It was more just getting my feet wet and understanding the ins and outs and ebbs and flows of the front office. It was very indicative early on that it was something I wanted to do because I just love that side of the game, too.'
Nearly a decade later, Preston Mattingly has his own team to run in Philadelphia, while his father (drafted 493rd by the Yankees in 1979) is in his 47th season in professional baseball.
The senior Mattingly, having played with Ken Griffey Sr. for the first five years of his career, remembers Ken Griffey Jr. running around the Yankees clubhouse and believes kids learn baseball through osmosis.
'Being around the game, they see what it looks like,' Mattingly said of all the big-league juniors. 'They know how these guys talk, they're not intimidated by players. I'm going into the Yankees clubhouse as a 20-year-old, I'm scared halfway to ... don't know what to do. He's been getting autographs from guys since he was six years old hanging around the locker room.'
It helps, being born into the game.
The Blue Jays know this well, and have even made bloodlines part of their development strategy over the past few years.
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Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Daulton Varsho are current Jays whose fathers were big-leaguers. Vladdy's was a Hall of Famer, while Bichette and Varsho's dads (Dante and Gary) combined to play 22 seasons in the majors.
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The Jays recently t ook two out of three from the Phillies at the Rogers Centre, while Preston watched his dad from the suites above.
'The passion he has for helping players, that's always been the biggest thing,' said the Phillies GM. 'He never lost sight of how hard the game is — even how great a player he was — and just shares that passion for helping players achieve the goals and dreams they want to achieve.'
On Father's Day in Philadelphia, the dad will be looking up at his son.
'I'm pretty impressed, honestly,' said the Jays coach. 'He's good with people, which you have to be. He's good with all the numbers and everything, all the technology today ... but still, there's a human side, and I think he's got a pretty good balance of that.'