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New York baseball boasted two perennial Gold Glove-winning first basemen for a lot of the Eighties. Don Mattingly and Keith Hernandez mixed to account for 20 of these awards throughout their careers, together with each of them successful in the identical yr 4 consecutive instances from 1985-88.
Mattingly, the previous Yankees All-Star now in his seventh season as supervisor of the Marlins, mentioned Thursday that he patterned his sport defensively after Hernandez, who will get his No. 17 retired by the Mets on Saturday at Citi Area.
“Keith, he performed in St. Louis, too, which was near house [in Indiana], so I knew all about Keith early on,” Mattingly mentioned earlier than Thursday’s sport. “Simply being right here [in New York], I used to be at all times attempting to catch his first-base play.
“While you get to the large leagues, I wished to be an excellent defensive participant, and Keith was like the usual of the way you play first. Positively a man that I paid consideration to, and actually tried to see how he dealt with sure conditions. … He’s a man that I respect rather a lot.”
Mattingly gained 9 American League Gold Glove awards throughout his 14 seasons with the Yankees from 1982-95, whereas Hernandez was named the winner within the Nationwide League 11 consecutive instances — probably the most on the place — from 1978-88.
“The bunt play from the opposite facet of the sector and getting the man at third, I don’t understand how he did it,” Mattingly mentioned when requested particularly about Hernandez’s defensive prowess. “That’s a troublesome play. I feel the Nationwide League helped, he knew who was bunting. However he coated that complete facet and got here throughout the mound and received guys at third on a regular basis. It was fairly wonderful.”
Mattingly mentioned the 2 All-Star first basemen have been “related ever since,” they usually constructed a relationship from hanging out at numerous offseason capabilities. As soon as within the mid-80s, Mattingly recalled, they sat subsequent to Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio at a Baseball Writers Affiliation of America awards dinner.
“That was enjoyable,” Mattingly mentioned. “That evening we have been speaking to Joe, Keith is from San Francisco and Joe is from San Francisco. So Keith is attempting to deliver up issues, and I’m simply form of listening. Keith is attempting to get him speaking. Keith can discuss, proper? And Joe is rather like [not answering].
“Lastly Keith goes, ‘What did you want doing on the plate?’ And Joe simply form of lit up and mentioned he favored to get proper on high of the plate and pull every thing. That simply sparked him to get speaking about hitting just a little bit. That’s what I bear in mind probably the most. … Joe didn’t discuss an entire lot, was fairly quiet, fairly reserved. However that was fairly fascinating. ”
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