On his first day as Dodgers interim manager, hitting coach Don Mattingly said yesterday that the team has made overtures about him eventually becoming Joe Torre's permanent replacement.The article goes on to remind us that Torre's contract expires after this season, but that he and Colletti are working on a one-year extension.
With Torre en route to Taiwan to manage a Dodgers split squad for three exhibition games, Mattingly is in charge of the team in Arizona and will work at least five games as manager.
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In a meeting this winter with Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti, owner Frank McCourt and team president Dennis Mannion, Mattingly said the word manager was brought up but "nothing definitive" was said or done.
"We talked about it, for sure," he said.
Mattingly was, and will always be, my favorite player ever. He was the perfect Yankee and the only reason to watch the Yankees at certain points in the late-80's and early-90's. He was also my idol growing up. I played first base, I tried to get my batting stance to look like Mattingly's (all his tweaks and changes over the year really screwed with me), I'm left-handed, and I always try to wear 23 when I played a sport. Now that is limited to creating myself in MLB The Show, but you get the point.
What I'm getting at is that I would love to see Mattingly finally get to manage. You can tell how badly he wants to and it would be great to see him not only get the job, but excel at it as well.
