Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Don Mattingly Honored With Statue In Hometown

BRIEN VINCENT / COURIER & PRESS
BRIEN VINCENT / COURIER & PRESS

It’s been an up-and-down off-season for Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly as he took his stand against the organization and later backed off those comments, saying he’d honor the final year of his deal.

Mattingly was on the hot seat during the first few months of the season, but a 42-8 summer stretch and winning the NL West seemingly cooled things until the postseason. Questionable decisions in the NLDS and NLCS didn’t help his cause, but he was still a finalist for NL Manager of the Year after leading the Dodgers to a 92-70 season.



During the off-season, Mattingly returned home to Evansville, Indiana and was honored according to the Kansas City Star via the AP:

Baseball great Don Mattingly’s southwestern Indiana hometown has dedicated a monument in the small field where Mattingly played his first game of baseball.  Mattingly visited Garvin Park’s youth baseball field in Evansville on Saturday to help dedicate the monument, which includes the inscription, “It all started here.”

Before being the manager of the Dodgers, Mattingly had one of the more decorated careers of any first baseman in the the 1980’s and early 1990’s. In his career, the 52-year-old manager was voted to the All-Star team six times, won nine Gold Glove awards and was also a three-time Silver Slugger award winner.

While he failed to win a World Series with the Yankees, Mattingly won the 1984 batting title and was voted team captain from 1991-95. Along with the monument presentation, a street was named after Donnie Baseball as he told stories of his time as a Little Leaguer at Garvin Park.

2014 should be a lot better for Mattingly and the Dodgers as there are expectations that a multi-year extension will be worked out between both sides.

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Ross Gasmer

Ross Gasmer is a Social Media Producer for @TheHerd and was a contributing writer and editor for Dodger Nation. Follow him on Twitter @Ross_Gasmer12

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