Don Mattingly....

No surprise here,

http://nesn.com/2015/10/report-dodgers-don-mattingly-agree-to-part-ways-after-five-seasons/

 

^^^yeah, I think most of us saw this coming...I don't know if Donnie was wrong for the Dodgers or if the Dodgers were wrong for Donnie...in fact, I'm not even sure if he's a very good manager or not.

...someone mentioned a week or so ago that he was rumored to being mentioned as a possible candidate for the Marlins job.

 

The Marlins have made some flaky moves over the past few seasons but according to an ESPN article Iread Loria is interested. As an old line Dodger hating fan I sure hated to see Mattingly follow Torre out there. The man looked out of place in that uniform. The man had some real "head cases" over there. so he may be glad to be away from it. I never remembered Mattingly as being jeeped up on a manager job, then all of a sudden he was in the running for the Yankees and then winding up in LA. Loved him as a player, damn near got into a brawl with a Mets fan over which team had the best 1st baseman. Hope he lands on both feet wherever he goes and what ever happens. As for the Dodgers fuck them, they got the Tampa and Oakland Execs in the front office for deals, had Greinke & Kershaw, and still got their asses kicked. Fuck 'em Donnie you deserve better.

 

This is more insightful with quotes from both Donnie and Friedman, and Yes, He is wanted in Miami..


http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...m=newsletter&utm_campaign=los-angeles-dodgers

 

The Yankees need a hitting coach..................just saying.

 

I want to see Him grow that Fu-Manchu back, only longer this time, like their supposed to be.....

One reason I've chosen my SN: as a Little Lg. Mgr. and Memorabilia collector, I always wore my Yanx Starter Coat, Jersey and Hat to shows, to foreign LL fields. Even in Malls, I'd have entire groups of kids, thinking I was Donnie BB. About the same size as DM, with dark hair color back then. Kids would flock around me and swear I was #23, to my own protests of no's........even asking for autographs......

At Memorabilia shows, several sellers behind their tables, could not see my eyes, only a fu-manchu, under the brim of my NY Cap, and NY garb. Guys would get out of their chairs stretch across the table, and look up at my face, and say: "Geezus I thought you were Don Mattingly." Loved the way Donnie approached the game always.

Now that I'm an old grey headed man, people now compare me to Bill Murray........WTF-.........I am neither, only an old fk, who loves Baseball, Yankee Greats, and Bill Murray Movies.......I only wish I had eithers $$$$$$$$

 

I'd love to see Don go back to a Hitting Instructor Coach, especially in NY........that IMO is what he does best, as good as Carew, ie, Hitting Coaches..........

 

The idea of bringing Mattingly back as hitting coach is well beyond Cashman thought process.

 

...they had one, but fired him, and now his guys are in the WS.

 

Here's the article noted URL in post #5

The Los Angeles Dodgers and manager Don Mattingly are parting ways after three straight trips to the playoffs but just a single postseason series victory.


The Dodgers confirmed the news in a team release on Thursday, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said:
As our end of season process began, we discussed the past year, our future goals, necessary changes, roster needs and other matters relating to next year's campaign. As the dialogue progressed daily, it evolved to a point where we all agreed that it might be best for both sides to start fresh. We decided to think about it for a couple of days and when we spoke again, we felt comfortable that this was the direction to go. I have the utmost respect for Donnie and thoroughly enjoyed working with him this past season. I want to thank him for his hard work and collaboration, as well as his accomplishments, including three consecutive National League West titles. I wish him nothing but success in the future.


Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, who originally reported the news, also noted the Miami Marlins are interested in the six-time All-Star to potentially take over the same role.


Mattingly reportedly wants to continue managing, but he had lost long-term support in L.A. As a result, the sides have decided to go their separate ways, according to Heyman.


Ramona Shelburne of ESPN reported the Dodgers had offered Mattingly a contract extension over the weekend, but the lingering uncertainty caused both parties to instead terminate the relationship.


Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times reported the Dodgers will pay Mattingly's salary for the 2016 season.


Mattingly said in the release:

I'm honored and proud to have had the opportunity to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers. I've enjoyed my experiences and relationships with the organization's staff and players throughout my eight years in L.A. After meeting with Andrew, Farhan and Josh, we all felt that a fresh start would be good for both the organization and me. We talked about several scenarios, including my returning in 2016. However, I believe this is the right time and right move for both parties. I'm still very passionate about managing and hope to get the opportunity in the near future. In the meantime, I want to thank the Dodger organization, the city and our fans for the opportunity and wish the club well going forward.


As has been the case since the Dodgers' new ownership group took over in 2012, drama has been following the team around. That's expected to some extent with payroll over $270 million in 2015.


Mattingly has been on the hot seat for two years, dating back to 2013 when the club got off to a slow start.

Ownership showed faith in him after the Dodgers made the playoffs last year by giving him a three-year contract extension in January. At the time, then-general manager Ned Colletti praised the job Mattingly had done during his tenure, per Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:


I think he's done a great job here. The last three years in the organization have been historic in a lot of different ways. We kept the baseball team steady and the credit goes to a lot of people, including the man who runs the dugout and the leader of the guys. This is well-deserved. He gets better and better.


Changes came to the Dodgers once again after they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2014 National League Division Series. Colletti remains with the organization but lost his duties as general manager because Andrew Friedman jumped from the Tampa Bay Rays to Los Angeles as the president of baseball operations.


Matt Snyder of CBS Sports wrote about a decision Mattingly made in this year's NLDS Game 5 that may have sealed his fate:


He pinch hits for Joc Pederson with Chase Utley. ...


Pederson's second-half on-base percentage was still .317. He'd already drawn two walks in Game 5. Utley had a .291 OBP since joining the Dodgers. Pederson was more likely to get on base.


Plus, Utley only hit eight homers all year. Pederson has light-tower power and hit 26 homers, six coming in the second half. Pederson was more likely to homer, too.


Mattingly has always been a hot-button topic in Los Angeles. He's not the most technically savvy manager, but CJ Nitkowski of Fox Sports 1 pointed out that it can't be easy handling the roster he was handed:


Despite keeping the egos in check enough to make the postseason in 2013 and 2014, the only thing that matters with such a massive payroll is winning a World Series. The Dodgers lost in the division series each of the last two years, including this season to the New York Mets with Zack Greinke starting Game 5.


The Dodgers' payroll will always be a focal point, but many high-salaried additions like Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Andre Ethier and Alexander Guerrero were products of the Colletti era.


It's also a big problem when Yasiel Puig misses most of the season due to injuries and Joc Pederson falls off a cliff in the second half (.617 OPS). Mattingly was always fighting an uphill battle with the lineup.


Friedman is going to build this team how he wants. Mattingly was hired by the old regime, leaving him in a precarious position. He handled the situation as well as possible, but eventually things changed.


He's had enough success to warrant another job somewhere, with a 446-363 (.551) record. It will also be good for him to get away from the intense scrutiny that comes with having a lot of expensive and aging talent on the roster.

CYA Donnie, it was great having you an hour away in Chavez Ravine, and FK the BUMS anyway, now I can go back to not being distracted, (If that makes sense).......?

 

that's right Cashman doesn't know talent when he see's it, (Reference: NY Times 1998 article)......
http://www.sportstwo.com/threads/1998-ny-times-article-tells-all-on-trashman.291065/

1 thing I have noticed, over the years as a Hitting Coach, and even as a Mgr., is he has taught dead pull hitters, ie, Pederson, A.Gonzo and others; to hit to the opposite field, adeptly; while showing slap hitters, how to turn on a ball and pull it out of the park.

Like Pinella did with Don, (ref: SI 1986 article with Ted Williams, Don and Boggs on the cover), Don would often (as reported in the LA Times), take the time to show players to do the same, or make minor mechanical adjustments. Even with the POS McGwire as a Hitting Coach, Don would trump Mark, and take the time himself.....

even in NY for a short time he even had A-Roid, hitting to the opposite field, only after a year or two of trying to show the fool, "you got to hit the ball where it is".........

BTW- who the fk ever hired McGwire, (Colletti) is/was a fkng moron, what has McGwire done here in LA, not a damn thing, if you ask me.......He sure as hell cannot and has not taught any hitter to slap hit, or place hit, or hit for average......McGwire should be good as gone, I hope........?

 

Sometimes I just forget who's running things.

 

This pic is from the April 14th, 1986- SI .........

there are 3 covers, 2 which are altenatives. #1 is shown below, both #2 and #3 show different covers, #2 has Don & Boggs, #3 has all 3, .....

I'm still digging out old memorabilia, and would post those other covers, IF I could find them, soon perhaps.......

 

Here is most of the April 14th, 1986 article: then some......

http://www.si.com/vault/1986/04/14/633776/a-real-rap-session

or- Here's the article from the URL:

Ted Williams and Wade Boggs had been talking nonstop from the time they left Winter Haven, Fla. 70 minutes earlier. The two batting champions were on their way to a rendezvous with yet another, Don Mattingly, when Williams, in the backseat, posed a question to Boggs, who was in the front.


"Have you ever smelled the smoke from the wood of your bat burning?" asked Williams in a voice not unlike that of John Wayne.


"Whaaat?" said Boggs.


"The smell of the smoke from the wood burning?"


"What are you talking about, Ted? I don't understand."


"Five or six times, hitting against a guy with good stuff, I swung hard and—oomph—just fouled it back. Really hit it hard. And I smelled the wood of the bat burning. It must have been that the seams hit the bat just right, and the friction caused it to burn, but it happened five or six times."


Boggs shook his head. "Awesome."


Five minutes later the pair of Red Sox sat down at Tio Pepe, a Clearwater restaurant popular among baseball people, for a dinner arranged by Peter Gammons of SI. Mattingly soon arrived from the Yankees' afternoon game in Sarasota—"Nice to meet you, Mr. Williams," he said—and for the next 2½ hours, three great lefthanded batters talked hitting.


Before we listen in, it should be explained that Williams, who still instructs the Red Sox in hitting during spring training, has long held the belief that the theories of the late Charley Lau "may have set hitting back 25 years." Williams's The Science of Hitting, which remains a classic work on batting, stresses the discipline of the hips, while Lau's The Art Of Hitting .300 teaches the discipline of the head and the importance of shifting weight. What was particularly galling to Williams was the fact that Lau's leading disciple. Red Sox hitting coach Walt Hriniak, was practicing nearby under his very nose. Hriniak is Boggs's mentor, while Mattingly's teacher is Lou Piniella, who learned from Lau in Kansas City. So in rounding up the three men for both dinner and discussion, Gammons brought together two apparently different philosophies. Yet the three ended up agreeing on the fundamentals of hitting.


Be forewarned that some of the technical debate in the beginning may be, like a Ryne Duren fastball, over the head. But the three proved worth listening to. As they conversed, players and coaches from other teams came up to the private dining room to eavesdrop.


WILLIAMS: Don, I haven't had the opportunity to watch you and the Yankees as much as I would have liked in the last year or so. But I'm impressed, very impressed. That [Mike] Pagliarulo looks like a good young hitter.


MATTINGLY: He's getting better. He's learning, it seems like more and more. He's trying that weight-shift thing, and getting back seems to help.


WILLIAMS: What do you mean? Tell me about the weight shift.


MATTINGLY: Just transferring from back to forward. It has helped me a lot. When I was in the middle of my body and my head was in the middle of my body, I was always right here. [He puts his hands tight to the middle of his body.] I was always inside-outing the ball, and I was popping up the ball away. So when I went here [leaning on his back foot], then went to there [striding forward], I got on top of the ball more, and I could pull the ball inside. It allowed some kind of freedom. I think you don't agree with me.


WILLIAMS: I don't think what you're telling me is right. My impression is that, even with all your great success, you don't really realize what you're doing.


MATTINGLY: I think I realize what I'm doing. I don't believe in the total Lau thing, but I think I need some sort of weight shift to hit the ball with more power. It's simple: I have to go back before I can go forward. It has helped me to put the ball in the seats, which I never did before. I always got a topspin, and I'd hit the ball to the warning track. Now I get the backspin, and the ball carries for me. Everything before was an uppercut and I was hitting on top of the ball, so I was getting line drives that would drop down.


WILLIAMS: What you're saying is that you're swinging down on the ball and—get me some paper, O.K. There's a great thing in life called logic. If you say you like to swing down....


MATTINGLY: I didn't say that. I just said I like to get backspin on the ball.


WILLIAMS: O.K. You want backspin, so you're cutting the ball. We'll say you're swinging level. At the moment of impact, in order to hit the ball just right and cut it, you have to hit it on the underneath side with the ball coming slightly down. Now, if I swing slightly up, I hit it with the greatest impact. This swing incorporates the single most important thing—not shifting your weight but getting your butt moving, your hips working. Do you believe that?


MATTINGLY: Yes, definitely.


WILLIAMS: [Standing in back of Mattingly.] Try to swing down. There's no hip movement at all there. If Don Mattingly wants to swing up, you're pretty well forced to move your hips, are you not? Two reasons I like slightly up. First, it incorporates your hips, which makes it possible to be quick and fast. Second, you're hitting in the exact plane of the pitch.


BOGGS: How do you think I swing?


WILLIAMS: You swing up a little, but you practice, practice that down stuff. [He puts his head down and chops downward. Boggs gets up and swings, keeping his head down.] Yeah, that downswing. Since whatever you practice, you're more inclined to do, that's what you do in games. Everyone tells me that in batting practice you're hitting them out of sight, that you're pulling the ball and getting it in the air and going to hit 30 home runs. Why not in a game?


MATTINGLY: But by exaggerating the downswing—if I'm an uppercutter—I'm not really swinging down in games, but I'm at least going to try to get my hands extended....


WILLIAMS: I want you to show me how you think your hands are. This is funny, because you don't realize what you're doing. Let me ask you something. How do you think your hands are at the moment of contact?


MATTINGLY: It depends on where the ball is.


WILLIAMS: Is your left hand on top of your right hand?


MATTINGLY: I don't know.


WILLIAMS: Ohhhh.


MATTINGLY: Really, I don't—I don't know what my hands are doing and all that stuff. I just know what feels right.


WILLIAMS: Try to open up and hit the way you first showed me. [Mattingly swings with his top hand coming over his bottom hand.]


BOGGS: Ground balls to the right side.


WILLIAMS: NOW this. [He pulls at Mattingly's hands so that Mattingly strains, with his left fist following behind his right.] Which is stronger? No doubt. This is a quick, strong game. I want to get the bat there as quickly as I can. They're going to say, listen to that old man Williams telling those good young hitters what to do, but you're 24 and 27. I've analyzed hitting as much as anyone ever has, and I know you've got to be logical.


MATTINGLY: Didn't you shift weight when you hit?


WILLIAMS: I'm going to ask you what your definition of shifting weight is.


MATTINGLY: The transfer of weight.


WILLIAMS: Where to where?


MATTINGLY: From anywhere—from where the head is to six, eight inches.


BOGGS: All right, let's put it in boxing theory. If a boxer hits you, is he going to generate more power from here [indicates a long punch] or more power from here [short punch].


WILLIAMS: He'll generate more power if he doesn't do a thing, then goes umph with his hips.


BOGGS: You're saying all you do is throw the hips? Nothing else? Where do you get the initial movement in the action-reaction process?


WILLIAMS: [He draws two fighters on a piece of paper.] If this guy strides and puts all his weight on his front foot, his weight's forward. I don't want to cheat myself six or eight inches toward the pitcher. Why give him that?


MATTINGLY: I agree with you. I think you have to wait, then explode. I don't think you have to shift to the front leg.


WILLIAMS: That's what you said earlier.


MATTINGLY: NO, I didn't. Well, I did, but I didn't mean to the extent that you're saying all the Lau people do. What I was always taught was to wait, wait, wait, see the ball and then hit it. I get my weight back—wait, wait, wait, then throw it. [He practices his swing.]


WILLIAMS: But you're not really exaggerating the weight shift there.


MATTINGLY: I'm already leaning back, so I've got to get forward some way. From waiting, where I'm giving myself the extra time to see the ball and the extra leverage, I'm exploding. It's the same thing as you're saying.


WILLIAMS: What's impressing me about the two of you is that you talk sense. I don't think you know yourselves as well as you will. Already you're in doubt about some of the things you do, Don. But they're teaching young hitters to hit down, give the pitchers a big advantage with that weight shift and turn over the top hand with that Lau theory.


BOGGS: No, they aren't.


WILLIAMS: YOU don't think so? If you transfer weight, you tell me how you can get your hands underneath. [Boggs takes his stride.] Exaggerate it a little. [Boggs does.] Now that's transferring weight. [Boggs takes his regular swing.] I don't call that transferring weight.


BOGGS: I do, and so would Walter Hriniak. And I've got pictures at home that people have taken at the point of contact where I almost look like you.


GAMMONS: If you look at pictures, the first movement, the cocking of the front knee, is almost exactly the same.


BOGGS: That's how I learned how to hit. I read your book in high school. My father would see me on television and could call me and tell me what I was doing wrong just by the way my front knee was or wasn't being cocked at the beginning of the swing.


WILLIAMS: Did you think I transferred weight?


GAMMONS: As you start your swing, you cock your front leg, and at the point of contact you're coming up off your back foot ever so slightly. That's a shift.


WILLIAMS: That's a hard thing not to do. It's a very little weight shift, more of an unwinding of the hips. A weight shift upsets balance.


BOGGS: I don't know what else you can call it. O.K., tell me how you think I swing?


WILLIAMS: I think you're balanced. But you talk about shifting weight.


MATTINGLY: All good hitters shift their weight. I can't believe they don't. Show me how you get back.


WILLIAMS: I'm doing it with my hips.


BOGGS: Cock your leg. Where's your weight going?


WILLIAMS: Which way am I shifting my weight?


MATTINGLY: I think you're shifting it back.


WILLIAMS: Only because it's the only way I can stand. O.K., watch me swing. I drop my back shoulder. I don't have to force myself to keep my head down. [Boggs takes his swing.] You're dropping your back shoulder, too.


BOGGS: That's the way I hit, and you try to say I don't hit like that.


WILLIAMS: I didn't say that. I never told you a thing about your swing. Your hands are right, but you don't practice the way you hit. When you get in the cage, you swing through with your head straight down—Dewey Evans pretty near makes me vomit the way he swings.


MATTINGLY: I don't buy that, either.


WILLIAMS: All I've heard around the Red Sox for the last five years is to keep your head straight down all the time, and it's a terrible thing. Mr. Brett does it sometimes and gets himself all screwed up. You know why? There's no way you can complete your swing. These are the things I hear, though. Swing down. Let the bat handle go. Why do you think they let the bat handle go?


BOGGS: To get extension.


WILLIAMS: Nah.


BOGGS: And a follow-through.


MATTINGLY: If I'm hitting the ball the other way, I can't hold onto the bat.


WILLIAMS: Sure you can.


BOGGS: When do you let your hand go?


WILLIAMS: I never let my hand go.


BOGGS: I know. But when do Lau, Hriniak and the guys who preach it say to let your hand go?


WILLIAMS: Just at contact.


BOGGS: Wrong.


WILLIAMS: Just before contact, then.


BOGGS: Wrong. [He takes a swing. His hands separate after the imaginary contact, and his bat follows through.]


WILLIAMS: But that's not the way the Lau people do it.


BOGGS: It is, too. That is the proper way to do it. You do it. [Williams stands up and takes an imaginary swing.]


MATTINGLY: You're letting go somewhere.


WILLIAMS: You gotta let it go some-where.


BOGGS: See.


WILLIAMS: Do you think you miss more balls on top or underneath?


MATTINGLY: I really don't know.


WILLIAMS: Oh, boy. One of the best hitters in the game and he doesn't know. O.K., when you don't hit it good....


MATTINGLY: More often than not, I pop it up. I would say that when I miss, I swing underneath.


BOGGS: Same thing, without a doubt.


WILLIAMS: What is that, early or late?


MATTINGLY: Probably early.


WILLIAMS: It's late!


BOGGS: Fly balls late, ground balls early.


WILLIAMS: When you hit the ball to left-field, do you hit more ground balls or fly balls?


MATTINGLY: I hit more fly balls.


WILLIAMS: As did everyone else who ever played the game. When you pull the ball, you have a tendency to hit more ground balls. You tend to hit the ball on the ground because the toughest thing is to pull the ball and get it in the air. That's the premium, par excellence hit.


MATTINGLY: If you hit the ball on the ground, it's because you don't get your hips open.


WILLIAMS: We're talking about the same things, aren't we? I hope you don't hit .409. Wade, what did I tell you when you were in the minors?


BOGGS: Don't change a thing.


WILLIAMS: I also told you to use the count more. Attack that first-pitch fastball. At 2 and oh and 3 and 1, try to get a fastball you can drive in the air. You should be doing that now. There's no reason you shouldn't hit 18 or 20 home runs.


BOGGS: What's so great about you, Ted, is that you teach the scientific foundations of hitting. I try to do that with high school players.


WILLIAMS: What do you teach?


BOGGS: Slightly up because of the plane of the arc, hit through the ball whether you're a pull or opposite-field hitter. I teach them to keep the head down and on the ball, but I don't try to change them too much.


GAMMONS: DO you realize that you three just agreed that the basics of the Ted Williams and Charley Lau theories are really the same and that you've been debating semantics?


WILLIAMS: I still say that what they do isn't what the Lau book preaches.


GAMMONS: Are there hitters today that you particularly like?


WILLIAMS: I love Dale Murphy. He's really got style. I like Mike Marshall's style. I like Bobby Horner, but Horner hits the pitcher's pitch too much. I like Keith Moreland's style. Greg Brock's got style, and he's got great mechanics; I don't understand why he doesn't do better. Darryl Strawberry's big, strong and really quick. He could eventually get a little more opened up and hit 45 home runs. I love to watch him. When you see him on the ball field, you just can't keep your eyes off him. Guys like that don't come along often. You should have seen Jimmie Foxx. He hit them like Mantle. They had a unique sound.


BOGGS: Don, the next time you're in Boston, look in Fenway for the one red seat most of the way up in the bleachers. That's where Ted hit one. Absolutely awesome.


WILLIAMS: Back to guys who should be good hitters who aren't. They swing at too many pitchers' pitches. You do, too, Don. I know you do. What did you have, 45 walks last year? At least Wade makes the pitchers give him something to hit.


MATTINGLY: I take a lot of first pitches, but after that I hack away.


GAMMONS: How does your approach differ from pitcher to pitcher?


MATTINGLY: If I've got a guy that I feel I can handle everything he's got, then I get right on top of the plate.


WILLIAMS: Do you vary your stance?


MATTINGLY: No, I vary my placement in the box, though. Closer to the plate and back. With a pitcher who can't throw the ball by me, I don't want to give him the outside corner, so I move up.


WILLIAMS: I find it interesting about the movement. If I moved, it was more up and back. I stayed the same distance from the plate most of the time. However, if I had a real sinkerballer who got them low and away, down, down, I might move up an inch and a half toward the plate. I never wanted to let that nibbler get me out.


BOGGS: I never vary my placement in the box. My front foot is right on the plate, my back foot's in the same place and it's been right there, cut and dried, for the last 18 years. Guy who throws hard, be a little bit quicker. Guy who throws the off-speed stuff, slow everything down.


MATTINGLY: What about a nasty lefthander with the ball in on your hands?


BOGGS: You mean like Matt Young?


MATTINGLY: Young, [Mark] Langston, [John] Candelaria. Candelaria I say is really tough.


BOGGS: You haven't had to face Rags [Dave Righetti]. He would definitely be in that group.


WILLIAMS: Who has got the best stuff of any righthanded starter?


BOGGS: Mike Moore of Seattle.


WILLIAMS: Young, Langston, Moore are all with Seattle. I thought Kansas City won the World Series. Who's got the toughest righthanded and lefthanded curveballs?


BOGGS: Bert Blyleven and Mike Witt for righties, Bruce Hurst for lefties.


WILLIAMS: Sinker?


MATTINGLY: Doyle Alexander for me, because he can do so many things with it.


BOGGS: Or Dennis Lamp. He's straight over the top.


GAMMONS: Ted, who was the toughest for you?


WILLIAMS: Boy, Bob Feller had great stuff. I can't name one who was toughest for me, but Eddie Lopat and Whitey Ford were really tough because they never gave me a pitch to hit. Bob Lemon was as tough as anyone. Now, if I could give you any advice, it would be that the tougher the pitcher, the tougher the situation, the tougher the count, the worse the light, the worse the umpires, the tougher the delivery, the single most important thing to think about is hitting the ball hard through the middle. You'll never go wrong with that idea in your mind. As long as you hit, and especially as you get older, hang in there and be quick.


BOGGS: If your name was Webster, not Williams, what would be your definition of a slump?


WILLIAMS: The inability to get hold of a ball and hit it with authority according to my potential.


BOGGS: Are you hitting the ball hard at all?


WILLIAMS: No, I'm not hitting the ball hard. If I'm hitting the ball hard and not getting hits, I didn't worry. I would say, "The law of averages is going to catch up with this ——." Do you guys know what you're capable of? A great hitter should walk three times for every strikeout.


BOGGS: How about twice for every strikeout?


WILLIAMS: Twice isn't good enough. If a hitter like Don isn't walking, he knows he's hitting too many pitchers' pitches. There are some hitters who had pretty good years, but now they're starting to filter down because pitchers know they'll swing at two or three balls. I can name you one in Boston who had some great years, but it's been steadily downhill since then. How the hell could the stupid American League pitchers let this guy hit like he did. They just weren't bearing down on him in the first three or four pitches....


Do you think you make more outs in the air or on the ground?


MATTINGLY: I think more in the air.


WILLIAMS: I tried to hit every ball I ever hit in the air, and I made more outs on the ground than in the air. Wade, I know you make more outs on the ground.


BOGGS: I popped up twice all season. But to me hitting the ball in the air means hitting a line drive, and I hit far more balls in the air.


WILLIAMS: Why do you think [Carlton] Fisk hit so many home runs last year? Because he hit the ball in the air more often.


MATTINGLY: I want to make more outs on the ground. I think I've got a better chance of getting a hit.


WILLIAMS: You know what they would say about Don Mattingly. We'll give him the hit. How many doubles did you have? Triples? Homers?


MATTINGLY: Forty-eight doubles, three triples, 35 homers.


WILLIAMS: They weren't on the ground. That's where your production was, so why hit the ball on the ground?


BOGGS: Perfection—well, maybe not in your eyes, Ted, but in mine—is a line drive and above. Willie Wilson and guys who can run want to get the ball on the ground. I want line drives. Ted, how many balls did you hit into the centerfield bleachers in Boston?


WILLIAMS: Not many. Damn few.


BOGGS: That's where I try to hit every ball. Dead center, above the speaker.


WILLIAMS: I hit only four home runs to left in Fenway.


BOGGS: Hey, I've finally found something I've done more often than you. Cecil Cooper says he has hit only one ball over the Wall in 15 years. George [Brett] says he's hit only four balls off the Wall in all his years. Don hit five in a weekend.


MATTINGLY: Last year was the first time I'd ever hit the Wall, in batting practice or any other time. Then I hit it four or five times in one series.


GAMMONS: Have any of you thought about playing in the opposite ballpark, Ted and Wade in Yankee Stadium, Don in Fenway? Ted, in 1949 you were almost traded for Joe DiMaggio.


WILLIAMS: I would have liked to have played in the Stadium.


BOGGS: I've thought about it, but I don't even like to go to New York. Fenway's perfect for me.


MATTINGLY: I would get into bad habits in Fenway. If I pull the ball, it's going to get into the seats in New York. Maybe not in Boston. It would bother me a lot. I would get lazy, and I think it would affect me on the road.


GAMMONS: Are there pitchers that you can absolutely read and know what pitch is coming?


WILLIAMS: I never liked that. I always wanted to guess on my own because I knew that if I were looking for a curveball, I might be looking too much.


BOGGS: When guys say, "I got the signs," I don't even listen. You know the guy's good curve. That's the only thing that sticks in your mind. If you see the ball and just go at it, you can react.


MATTINGLY: I don't want to know.


GAMMONS: Has there ever been a hitter who did not guess?


BOGGS: Not guess, feel. Guess is 50-50. Half of the time when you make a guess, you're wrong. You know by a feeling. A feel, not a guess, by what he's thrown me before. I've got four things on my mind: fastball, slider, curve, change. Let's say I'm going to guess change....


WILLIAMS: I never guessed a change in my career. I could pick up a change. But, sure, everyone guesses, although it had better be an educated guess.


MATTINGLY: Not me. I can pick up a slider or a curve, but a good change I have as much trouble with as any pitch.


GAMMONS: We often hear about hitters "seeing the ball." Is there a difference from hitter to hitter?


MATTINGLY: Dave Winfield will hit a home run, I'll ask him what the pitch was, and he'll shake his head and say, "I don't know."


BOGGS: Jim Rice, too.


WILLIAMS: My only answer to that is that it's an act.


MATTINGLY: I swear some people don't know. Winfield will hit a ball dead on the nose, and he'll say, "I think it was a fastball, but I don't know."


WILLIAMS: I don't think it's possible to hit a ball and not know what it was. I knew what every ball I hit was.


GAMMONS: What would be the reasons why you stop seeing the ball well?


BOGGS: Backgrounds. Delivery. Confidence. My biggest is backgrounds. Baltimore in the day.


MATTINGLY: Milwaukee in the day, with those silver seats.


BOGGS: Texas is the worst for taking batting practice. After that I'm screwed up for the game. I hate Minnesota and Seattle, with that incandescent lighting. It's a killer.


MATTINGLY: I hit well indoors. I actually like it when the pitcher seems as if he's right on top of me. I feel as if it's going to be short and quick, and all I have to do is react to the pitch.


BOGGS: Do you hit well in Kansas City?


MATTINGLY: No.


BOGGS: Well, the pitcher's more on top of you there because the mound's closer to the plate. It's 56 feet, six inches instead of 60 feet, six inches. Ever notice how all their hitters are in the back of the box? One day I said to Jerry Remy, "The pitchers are right on top of me." Remy said, "Hey, that's right," and we went out the next day and measured it. Nobody in the park. We took a tape measure. Fifty-six, six. [The Royals deny this.—ED.] Ted, did you have pitchers who went right after you and challenged you with fastballs?


WILLIAMS: I think the hardest thrower I ever faced was Virgil Trucks. He threw as hard as Feller. DiMaggio said he was the hardest thrower he ever faced. I hit more home runs off him than any pitcher because he challenged me.


GAMMONS: How about guys right now?


MATTINGLY: [Edwin] Nunez did it with me last year, and it was the most fun I've ever had playing baseball. He got me 2 and 2, and—ka-boom, ka-boom, here it is—five or six in a row as hard as he could come. I think I popped up, but I sent him two beers that night.


GAMMONS: Does anyone ever see the ball off the bat?


WILLIAMS: Now if the ball's coming real slow and you swing early, you can come real close. I've seen what I thought was the ball going over my bat—I think.


BOGGS: You can't see the bat hit the ball if you're generating any bat speed. If you're just laying the bat through the strike zone, sure, maybe. Ted, ask Don the question you asked me about the bat burning.


WILLIAMS: Have you ever smelled the smoke from the wood burning?


MATTINGLY: I've had it happen. Yeah. Twice, for sure. All of a sudden, I smelled a real big burn, and at the same time I was thinking, "I just missed that one." Two or three times. I've never told that to anyone, because I didn't think anyone would believe me. I think one of the bat burns came off Nunez, too.


BOGGS: That's the damndest thing I've ever heard. I thought I'd heard everything about hitting, but that's unbelievable. Amazing.


WILLIAMS: [Rising from the table to leave.] Well, all good hitters have to get their sleep. I really had fun. But I still say, as good as these young hitters are, they still don't know anywhere near as much about what they're doing as they think. We've got to go now.


MATTINGLY: [Still seated.] Wade, how does Baltimore pitch you?

 

and from the authors own additional words:


'Can you smell the bat burning?'
By Peter Gammons

http://espn.go.com/gammons/s/2002/0705/1402438.html

Ted Williams got what he always wanted. When he walked towards a San Diego playground before the 1991 All-Star Game in his hometown, a man stopped his car, turned to his son and said, "There goes the best hitter who ever lived." It was Williams' mantra, and it was repeated at Fenway Park in 1999, when, surrounded by Henry Aaron and Mark McGwire and Willie Mays and the rest of the All-Century team, Tony Gwynn spoke those very words.

He was a man whom John Wayne and Robert Ryan tried to emulate, was John Glenn's co-pilot in Korea, was the last man to hit .400. He also batted .388 at the age of 39 in 1957 -- without one infield hit. Was that his greatest hitting achievement? "Nah," he said, "that was the year my bat slowed down, but the league didn't adjust to me. I was late on a lot of balls and got hits to center and left-center. They were out of position a lot. No big deal."

No big deal? .388!

He was too stubborn to use the whole field, but his patience and simple creed -- "Get a good pitch to hit" -- defines the approach to plate discipline that marks the Yankees and A's of this era. He loved hitting, its science, and all its attributes. When I was driving Ted and Wade Boggs to Clearwater for a dinner of hitting talk with Don Mattingly in spring training of 1986, Ted asked Boggs, "Have you ever smelled the bat burning?"

"What are you talking about?" Boggs replied.

Ted didn't reply.

At dinner, Ted repeated the question to Mattingly.

"People think I'm crazy, but yes," replied Mattingly. "It takes a perfect rising, four-seam fastball, a perfect swing, a foul straight back ... and you can smell the burn of the seams and the bat."

"Only the guys who whip that lumber have smelled it," said Ted.

__________________________________________

When all those great players surrounded Williams at Fenway at the '99 All-Star Game, he motioned for McGwire to come closer. He asked the same question.

After the game, McGwire repeated the story of how Ted called him over and asked if he'd ever smelled the bat burning. "I told him I had," said McGwire. "But can you believe that he knew who I am?"

"What are you talking about, smelling the bat burning?" asked an All-Star teammate.

That teammate didn't understand that Ted, McGwire and Mattingly speak a language of their own, the language of the gods.

In 1991, ESPN producer Debby Wrobleski and I were trying to do an interview with Williams concerning the 50th anniversary of .406 and other subjects. At 6 a.m. one day, the phone rang. "So," boomed the voice on the other end. "When the hell are you coming down here?"



He said he had no more than 30 minutes ... and finally had to get ready for a court date after the interview had run more than 100 minutes. He recounted why he wouldn't sit out the second game after passing .400, and that the best right-handed and left-handed pitchers he ever faced were Bob Lemon and Herb Score. With the interview over, he called me into the kitchen. There, he'd set up six glasses with ice, two plates of nachos and cheese and crackers for the six people in our crew. "They probably got tired and hungry and thirsty listening to my BS," he said.

In snapshots, he could be one of the warmest men on the planet, as he was the first time I met him doing a sidebar at a Senators-Red Sox game in 1970, when he was managing the Senators and I was a cub reporter; after an hour in his office, he said, "Kid, you're OK. You like this game."



He could have been bitter about all the time he missed in World War II and Korea and with injuries, but when he did a commercial for the Hall of Fame he so loved, he listed being a Marine as one of his two greatest accomplishments. Oh, he'd also have hit more than 521 homers had he used the screen above The Green Monster, but he never whined. In fact, he always stayed in tune with the game. One day he called Dan Duquette out of the blue and said, "Nomar Garciaparra is the best damn player who ever played for the Red Sox." He loved McGwire and Barry Bonds, and one time he told me, "Every time I watch Paul Molitor hit, I close my eyes and see Joe DiMaggio."

Molitor saw the interview on ESPN, and said he was floored. Soon thereafter, Molitor was at the B.A.T. Dinner in New York, and when he went into the room with the head table, Ted was sitting in a corner telling stories with several of his contemporaries. "Get over here," Williams hollered to Molitor. "I want these guys to meet you. You're one of the greatest damned hitters who ever lived, kid."



But it had to be his way. When the Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue came out with Boggs on the cover and featuring the three-way discussion on hitting, Ted charged me, waving a copy of the magazine. "See ... see ... look at Boggs' bat," he hollered. "Is it an uppercut? You're damned right it's an uppercut. See ... see ... Ted was right, Walt Hriniak was wrong. Period."

Unfortunately, Williams got only one chance at a World Series, in 1946, and in an exhibition before the first game, he was hit by a pitch, damaged his wrist and could barely swing the bat against the Cardinals. So he is left with the memorial that he was beloved by teammates, and when Fenway Park holds his memorial service on July 22, he will be remembered as the greatest damn hitter who ever lived.

 

at times, I think "The Plan" consists of no one knowing who is running the show, while everyone points the finger at the others? (sigh).........!

 

Mark McGuire hitting coach technique: " OK boys bend over".

 

That's not my actual take, tho' I'd like to see Don back in NY as a Hitting Coach, that's not going to happen; and your right, he's probably headed to another Managerial Job in Miami.........in lieu of taking a step backwards......!

As flaky as the Marlins Owner is; in time, and years down the road, I'd not be surprised what Donnie's future holds in store, not just in the year to come, but in the Years to come........