JUPITER, Fla. _ This happened a long time ago, happened on an Opening Day in old Yankee Stadium, happened when Don Mattingly was playing his first home opener at first base in New York.
Mattingly wasn't Donnie Baseball then. He wasn't a batting champ or league MVP. He was decades from being the best hire Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has made, the one who stopped the clown show and cloaked the owner's sad act with enough credibility to let the franchise be about baseball again.
Everyone inside the team appreciates that. As one Marlin said, pointing to the other side of their spring-training facility, the St. Louis side, the side of the gold-standard in baseball: "He's like one of them. He does things right and professional in a way that wasn't being done around here. He got us back to that."
Which gets back to that Opening Day of 1983. Mattingly sits at a picnic table outside the Marlins clubhouse as another opener looms and remembers that first one in New York. The Yankees lost to Detroit, 13-2. But that's not the memory.
"I was at the center of it," he said.
Three plays at first base. No errors. But all were like the high chop that he had to try an all-or-nothing scoop on. Fielded cleanly, it's a double-play ball. But he didn't come up with the scoop. He got one out instead.
That led to a run scoring. And that led to the rookie feeling the crush of a New York moment with reporters after the game. What happened? Was he nervous? Did he have a chance at those balls?
"I said, 'No excuses, I've got to make those plays,' " Mattingly said. "That's how I felt about it."
Then Mattingly, now 55, gets to the lesson of that moment. "That set up my time in New York," he says. "I was never one to make excuses or do anything but say, 'I've got to make the play.' "
His Marlins don't have enough starting pitching with the death of Jose Fernandez, and don't have enough depth if injuries hit. They need career years from players with uncertain careers. But doubts, concerns � excuses?
"This is our chance to win," he says.
Mattingly sees a roster where the youngest player isn't that young. Christian Yelich is 25. This team's been together for four, maybe five years. This might be the best chance it gets.
"We know our window of opportunity isn't a four-year window," he said. "We feel our window is right here, right now. You can talk about that in terms of everything _ your career. It's a small window. You see with Jose, it's forever, then boom, it's gone.
"Me? I'm shocked how long it's been since I last played. It seems your career's that quick. But when you're in it, you think it's going to be a long, long time. That's something we're thinking. We've got a good group, we've been together a few years, this is our opportunity."
Mattingly is a blend of old- and new-school. As he says, he's been through everything any player has: From the low-drafted prospect to the rising star to signing for big-money and bigger pressure to being an established star to suffering a career-changing back injury.
But that deep background hasn't kept him from the new-age world. He studies analytics more than any Marlins predecessor. It's information. "I want all the information I can get," he says.
The decision to keep just four bench players and an extra reliever means Mattingly has to be as good as his players this year. There will be times, early in games, he'll have to bat a pitcher rather than use a pinch-hitter.
"I like what we've got," he says.
It's what every manager says every April. Mattingly has brought something no one manager in baseball has, though. He's brought an end to laughter around a full franchise.
He's brought stability, credibility and an ability to make the owner stand down in a way predecessors couldn't. Now the harder question: Can he help this team win?
