Don Mattingly makes his second showing on Monster Monday. I featured his 1985 card in September. I’ve never been a advocate of Donnie Baseball for the Hall of Fame but looking at his stats again, he makes a good case. He put a string of very good years together.
The season of 1984 was Mattingly’s first real outstanding year with the Yankees. He led the AL in hitting with a .343 batting average. He banged 207 hits, 44 of them doubles.
This was the first year that Mattingly showed some power too. He hit 23 dingers for the Yanks. His 110 rbis in ‘84 was the first in four straight years with 100 plus.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 Totals | 153 | 662 | 603 | 91 | 207 | 44 | 2 | 23 | 110 | 1 | 41 | 33 | .343 | .381 | .537 |
Let’s start with the 1B-5. We don’t see too many first baseman sluggers with the top fielding rating.
Mattingly’s 1984 card isn’t as tasty as his 1985 card but I’d still happily bat it anywhere in my lineup. He has power numbers 1-5-6-6. He batted well enough to warrant three sevens (good for a 15-7) AND four 8s. His last 9 is at 64.
Ever the contact hitter, Don Mattingly only has one 13 at 56. He is also rated an OF-2 for his 19 games in the outfield.
Fun numbers: 15-7, 64-9, 1B-5
Miscellaneous notes
APBA cardmakers placed the 12 result number at the 12 in the 1984 card set. Instead of putting the 25 on an untaken number, they put it at 52 and moved the 27 to 23.
If you look closely, the result numbers on Mattingly’s card on this particular set are slightly offset. They are a little lower than the black dice roll numbers. This is not true for all the players’ cards in the set. In fact, Ryne Sandberg’s 1984 card numbers (seen here) are offset a bit higher.
