September 30, 1984: Mattingly overtakes teammate Winfield for batting title on final day

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner became the champion of player free agency and trade transactions, routinely looking past his top prospects to build out his roster. His 1984 team was built around free-agent acquisitions Dave Winfield, Don Baylor, Steve Kemp, and Phil Niekro, as well as Ken Griffey, Omar Moreno, Toby Harrah, and Butch Wynegar, who had been acquired through trades. Although the Yankees’ highly prized prospect Don Mattingly was on the rise, no one expected him to have the type of campaign he would turn in during his first full season with the Yankees. He became involved in a fierce battle for the league batting average title with the veteran Winfield that wasn’t settled until the last day of the season.

Mattingly had become one of the Yankees’ most promising rookies since Bobby Murcer, Thurman Munson, and Roy White in the late 1960s. Since other recent prospects Willie McGee, Otis Nixon, and Fred McGriff had already been traded, Mattingly represented the Yankees’ best hopes from within their farm system to help the team return to prominence. He had shown a propensity to hit for high averages (.349, .358, .316, and .315), as he progressed through the minors.

After posting a slash line of .340/.437/.598 with Triple-A affiliate Columbus in 1983, he was rewarded with a permanent job with the big-league Yankees by June 21. Splitting his time between first base and the outfield, he hit a respectable .283 in 91 games, with 4 home runs and 32 RBIs. The 23-year-old secured the full-time first-base job at the start of the 1984 season.

Winfield was in his 12th major-league season and fourth with the Yankees. He had been an All-Star in each of his three previous seasons, while capturing three Silver Slugger Awards. However, he was not known for high batting averages. He had hit over .300 only twice before, with back-to-back .308 seasons in 1978 and 1979 with San Diego.

While Winfield and Mattingly were hitting well, the batting title race between them didn’t become serious until the end of July.

Winfield had an exceptional month of June with a .476 average, which raised his season average to .368. He went hitless in only four games that month while he belted out multiple hits 15 times, including three games with five hits in each. By the All-Star break after July 8, he appeared to have an insurmountable 40-point lead over Mattingly (.370 to .330). Yet at the end of July his lead had diminished to only 7 points (Winfield dropped to .346 while Mattingly increased to .339.) Between August 17 and September 8, Winfield mounted another surge with a 20-game hitting streak that included a slash line of .427/532/.747. Yet on a calendar month basis, he had four months in which his batting average was below .300.

Mattingly was more consistent from month to month than Winfield throughout the season. His best came during August, when he hit .383. But then in September, both players experienced virtual slumps, when compared with the rest of their seasons. Mattingly hit .319, while Winfield hit .290.

By September 21, Mattingly had overtaken Winfield, .346 to .344, and they were nip-and-tuck through the rest of the season. The following table illustrates the closeness of the race and how the batting averages progressed during the week leading up to the final game.

The Yankees were tied with Boston for third place in the AL East going into the last day of the season. They had been out of contention for the division lead since April. Their opponent was the division-leading Detroit Tigers, who were completing the best season (104 wins) in franchise history.

A crowd of 30,602 showed up in Yankee Stadium for the season finale to see who would reign as the batting-average leader. Tigers rookie right-hander Randy O’Neal drew the starting assignment from manager Sparky Anderson. He had won his first two decisions as a September call-up by the Tigers. Yankees manager Yogi Berra countered with rookie left-hander Dennis Rasmussen, who held an 8-6 record.

O’Neal was roughed up by the Yankees in the first inning; they scored three runs including one by Mattingly, who singled, and Winfield, who reached on a fielder’s choice.

Mattingly led off the bottom of the third with a double and eventually scored, while Winfield drew a walk.

In the fourth, Mattingly again doubled for his third hit off O’Neal, scoring Andre Robertson, who had led off the inning with a single. Winfield got his first hit in the game, and Baylor doubled for the second time to score Mattingly and Winfield, making the score 7-1.

With the game seemingly well in hand in the fifth inning, attention turned toward the batting race. Mattingly batted in his third consecutive inning and was retired for the first time in the game by Tigers reliever Sid Monge on a fly out.

With the score 9-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Winfield flied out against Aurelio Lopez.

Mattingly got a bad-hop single to right off Willie Hernandez in his fifth at-bat in the eighth inning, while Winfield hit into a fielder’s choice. The game ended with a final score of 9-2. Tigers second baseman Scott Earl, who thought he would catch the groundball on Mattingly’s last at-bat, said, “I ranged over to get it, but at the last second it came up. I didn’t have a chance to get my glove up, and it bounced over my glove. I was aware of their race, but it didn’t matter to me who won it. If Winfield hit that same ball, the same thing would have happened. I just didn’t have time to react. It took a bad hop.”1

Mattingly’s four hits increased his final batting average to .343, while Winfield finished at .340 on his lone hit.

“Someone said if I didn’t get a hit the last time up and Winfield did, he’d have won by two-thousandths of a point,” Mattingly said. “Right then I knew there was no way I could be a loser. Neither of us could be a loser. But I guess that’s the American way – someone has to win and someone has to lose.”2 He added, “I never thought it would come down to the last at-bat. You couldn’t write it any better. It’s been a storybook year for me and it will be hard to duplicate.3 However, if Mattingly hadn’t made the last hit the correct calculation would have been .00053 (.34215 to .34162) difference in Winfield’s favor.

When Winfield hit his groundball in his last at-bat in the eighth inning, forcing Mattingly out at second, Mattingly first returned to the dugout and then reemerged to meet Winfield at first base, where they shook hands and embraced. Berra sent Scott Bradley to pinch-run for Winfield, and the two hitting leaders walked off the field together. Mattingly said, “Dave has been a great person through this whole thing. He handled himself like a gentleman. I have great respect for him.” Mattingly said he and Winfield had spoken a couple of weeks earlier and “agreed there was no need for friction” during their head-to-head battle.4

However, Bill Madden of the New York Daily News asserted that Winfield was not as amiable about the outcome of the batting race, noting that Winfield hastily checked out of his locker and exited a side door of the clubhouse in order to avoid teammates and reporters.5

The batting title was Mattingly’s only one during his 14-year career, although he finished as runner-up (to Wade Boggs’s .357) with a .352 mark two years later. It was the Yankees’ first since Mickey Mantle’s in 1956.

The Mattingly-Winfield duel was reminiscent of other years when teammates’ competitions for the batting average title were settled on the last day of the season. Willie Mays won out over Giants teammate Don Mueller in 1954, and George Brett edged Royals teammate Hal McRae in 1976.

Mattingly followed his masterful 1984 season with an MVP year in 1985, when he batted .324 and led the league with 48 doubles and 145 RBIs. He was eventually named captain of the Yankees and was the face of the franchise until his retirement as a player in 1995.

Sources

In addition to the sources in the Notes, the author consulted:

Klein, Moss. “Will Berra Be Back in ’85? Or Weaver?” The Sporting News, October 15, 1984: 23.

“Mattingly Nips Winfield for A.L. Batting Crown,” The Sporting News, October 8, 1984: 32.

“Perfect Ending for Witt,” Detroit Free Press, October 1, 1984: 1H.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Jerry Coli / Dreamstime.

Notes

1 Murray Chass. “Mattingly Wins Title; Witt Pitches Perfect Game,” New York Times, October 1, 1984: C1.

2 Chass.

3 Bill Madden. “Mattingly’s Four Hits Nip Winfield for Title,” New York Daily News, October 1, 1984: 41.

4 Chass.

5 Madden.