Former major league great Don Mattingly is returning to the New York Yankees.
A six-time All-Star who was the team's captain from 1991 until his retirement in 1995, Mattingly was persuaded by owner George Steinbrenner to become the team's hitting coach.
While no announcement was made Monday, his hiring was disclosed by a baseball official with knowledge of the team's decision. A news conference was expected Tuesday.
When Mattingly was at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 15 to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 6 of the AL championship series, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to return to a full-time role with the team.
He replaces Rick Down, who was fired last week after New York hit just .140 with runners in scoring position during its six-game loss to Florida in the World Series.
Willie Randolph, who had been third base coach for the last 10 years, becomes bench coach in place of Don Zimmer, who quit the day after the Series loss, saying he would never again work for Steinbrenner.
Lee Mazzilli, the first base coach for the past four years, replaces Randolph as third-base coach -- unless Baltimore hires Mazzilli as its manager. Luis Sojo, who played in parts of seven seasons with the Yankees from 1996 through this year, takes over from Mazzilli as the first-base coach.
Rich Monteleone remains as the bullpen coach, and Gary Tuck stays on as the catching instructor.
Mel Stottlemyre, who became pitching coach when Joe Torre took over as manager before the 1996 season, said after the World Series he will take several weeks before deciding whether to return.
Mattingly, known as Donnie Baseball, was the 10th Yankees captain, the last until Steinbrenner gave Derek Jeter the title in June.
Mattingly hit .307 with 222 homers and 1,099 RBIs in a career that lasted from 1982 to 1995, when he retired because of back trouble. He won nine Gold Glove awards at first base, won the 1984 American League batting title and was voted the league's most valuable player award the following year.
His No. 23 was retired by the team in 1997, and he returned to the field three years later as a spring training instructor. He said then he didn't want a full-time baseball job, wanting to watch his three children grow up.
Mattingly's oldest son, Taylor, was selected by the Yankees out of Evansville Central High School, Indiana in the 42nd round of the amateur draft in June. He hit .224 for the Gulf Coast Yankees with no extra-base hits and seven RBIs in 58 at-bats.
When the Yankees fired Chris Chambliss as hitting coach after the 2000 season, Mattingly was contacted by Torre.
"It was back on the road, and I didn't want to go back on the road," Mattingly said then. "I didn't want to be gone."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier