00:00A very curious move, I thought, was the announcement of Don Mattingly,
00:03former manager of the Marlins and Dodgers, leaving a great situation in Toronto.
00:08But now we've learned that he's joining the Philadelphia Phillies to become the bench coach.
00:13And Donnie, with nothing left to prove except for that he can stop doing this.
00:18That's what he needs to prove to us, that he can stop and retire and tear a jersey off.
00:21But he just can't do it, Aram.
00:23He's going to Philadelphia now.
00:24And I'm guessing that there's two things behind it.
00:29Number one, obviously, I've talked to Donnie about this.
00:32I have.
00:33And he told me last year that I was like, what are you doing?
00:37Are you just going to do this forever?
00:38And he's like, well, now my son, Louie, really loves baseball.
00:42So he's enjoying going to the games and following him around and meeting the players and going to the clubhouse.
00:47And so now he doesn't want to stop because of that.
00:49That's one.
00:50And then the second thing is that he gets to work with his other son in Preston.
00:53And I think that that just has a huge part of it.
00:57I would not be surprised, Aram, if this is it, if this is his final year doing it just to get that one year in with his son.
01:03It does feel like that.
01:04I was going to say, if you were thinking about retiring, but you surprise everybody and don't, this would be the most understandable explanation and reason why.
01:15And obviously he can do whatever he wants with his career.
01:17I think baseball would love to have Don Mattingly around as much as possible.
01:21But to your point, like, if you're going to leave the Jays, which was such a good situation, probably means that you're ready to hang it up.
01:29But it's hard to pass on such a special opportunity where, you know, I'm sure most of his family is going to be there, being able to work with his son there.
01:36Like, that seems to be the perfect way to go out.
01:39And also, like, he's got a shot at the ring again, too.
01:41It's not like he's joining his son on, you know, the Nationals.
01:45He's joining his son on a team that I think I've picked to win the World Series two straight years now.
01:51So I love that wrinkle of it as well.
01:53And I think for Don, like, through the ups and downs and a lot of frustrating years of being maybe the manager of some bad Marlins teams, like, he had a really good year last year.
02:03He's going to have another good team this year.
02:06And to do it with family, it seems like the perfect way to go out if that's what he does.
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