Arguably the most famous member of the Toronto Blue Jays staff has done many things in baseball.<\/p>\n
Making his debut Sept. 8, 1982, for the New York Yankees and playing all the way until the end of the 1995 season, Toronto Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly was the face of the biggest team in baseball for over a decade.<\/p>\n
Mattingly won nine Gold Gloves, made six All-Star Games, and won the American League MVP in 1985. In 2004, he began working as a coach for the Yankees, later joining the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, where he was eventually promoted to manager, while also spending time with the Miami Marlins in the same role.<\/p>\n
But despite spending the vast majority of his adult life in baseball, Mattingly will do something Friday for the first time<\/a>: work in a World Series game.<\/p>\n The Yankees have made 41 World Series appearances in their history, vastly outpacing any other MLB team. But from 1981 to 1996 \u2014 perfectly bookending Mattingly\u2019s playing career the year before and after \u2014 they weren\u2019t in the Fall Classic.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it feels great to get there, and I feel like we\u2019re gonna play well too,\u201d Mattingly told MLB.com earlier this week<\/a>. \u201cThe feeling of fighting to get there is so tense. So, yes, I\u2019m going to enjoy it. It\u2019s been really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Blue Jays manager John Schneider grew up with Mattingly as one of his favourite players, even having a poster of him on his wall.<\/p>\n \u201cI think with everything that he\u2019s done for me over the past three years, you want to share that with him. He\u2019s been rock solid steady for me, as has everyone on the staff. But I think our relationship over the past three years has really grown to where we really know one another pretty well,\u201d Schneider said earlier this week prior to Game 7 of the ALCS. \u201cYeah, a small part of me growing up in New Jersey would think it\u2019s pretty cool to be in a World Series with Donnie.\u201d<\/p>\n