October 22, 2025 – One team is coming off a sweep. The other: an epic Game 7 comeback win.
And after 36 seasons in the sport, Don Mattingly – “Donnie Baseball” – is at last in a World Series.
After captaining the New York Yankees over an outstanding 14-season career that laid the groundwork for the dominant Yankees teams of the late ’90s and early ’00s, serving as a bench coach with Joe Torre during a Series-less stretch, and then managing the Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Dodgers before the latter’s recent World Series success, Mattingly — one of the Nashville Stars Baseball Club’s Baseball Advisors — is in his first World Series.
He’ll take in the experience as the Toronto Blue Jays’ bench coach when the Dodgers head to Toronto to take on the Jays for Game 1 of the 2025 World Series, just the third-ever Fall Classic to go north of the border.
Speaking to Major League Baseball (MLB) News this week, Mattingly said, “Paul O’Neill told me, ‘Once you get to the World Series, it’s almost like this is the fun part. The feeling of fighting to get there is so tense.’ So, yes I’m going to enjoy it. It’s been really fun.”
And Nashvillians will be able to cheer on both Mattingly and Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, no matter whose team is winning.
Betts is a homegrown Nashvillian who starred at John Overton High School, winning the AL MVP in 2018 with the Boston Red Sox and claiming the World Series crown three times: 2018, 2020 and 2024.
Mattingly starred for the Nashville Sounds Baseball Club in the early 1980s and went on to win a batting crown and the 1985 MVP award. He was in Nashville earlier this year as the featured speaker for the Nashville Old Timers Baseball Association’s annual banquet in January.
Congratulations to Don Mattingly on reaching the big stage. And good luck to both the Dodgers and Blue Jays on reaching the World Series – the Stars join all of Music City in looking forward to an exciting series ahead!