Don Mattingly hoping 19th chance is his Hall of Fame breakthrough

Here is where we retell a story that has been told and retold and retold without an ending that most Yankees fans find suitable.

Don Mattingly has been on a Hall of Fame ballot 18 times and has been rejected 18 times.

Will it be lucky No. 19, symbolic of a Yankees 19th-round pick?

The baseball world will find out Sunday, when Mattingly will be one of eight candidates whom the 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, which meets at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, will consider for induction.

“Donnie Baseball” needs 12 votes — which would be four more than he received three years ago — to achieve baseball immortality.

The seven other players on the ballot are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela.

Voters, who include Hall of Famers, MLB executives and veteran media members/historians, can select up to three players.

The last time this group convened, Fred McGriff received 16 votes to gain enshrinement, while Mattingly finished second with eight.

Murphy, a contemporary who has been linked with Mattingly, earned six votes.

In a significant rule change this year, candidates who receive fewer than five votes will not be eligible in the next cycle.

Any candidate who doesn’t receive at least five votes twice would be off the ballot permanently.

If he finds those four extra votes to crack 75 percent, Mattingly’s journey to Cooperstown would span a quarter of a century, a would-be Class of 2026 member who first appeared on a ballot in 2001.

In his first try, the Yankees icon received 28.2 percent of the vote, which became his zenith in 15 years on the general ballot.

Subsequent attempts through the Eras Committee, which meets every three years, have ended similarly.

“I hope I get in,” Mattingly said recently on “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman” podcast. “Obviously everyone would like to be recognized for that.”

Mattingly’s numbers remain the same, but maybe his post-career years as a manager and a coach — the Hall of Fame asks voters to consider candidates’ “contributions to the game” — will help.

Perhaps so, too, will a different set of voters and more time removed and more perspective gained from a playing career that had remarkable highs and a relatively brief duration that has kept him out of Cooperstown.

By now the bulk of the case for Mattingly has been well-documented: From 1984-1989, he was among the best players in the sport.

In that six-year span, he won a batting title, one MVP, finished second, fifth, seventh and 15th in the voting in four other seasons and averaged over 26 home runs and 114 RBIs with a .902 OPS — all while playing all-time defense at first base.

He was the leader (and, beginning in 1991, captain) of also-ran Yankees teams.

But a degenerative disc in his back had sapped much of his power by the 1990s.

Mattingly averaged fewer than 10 home runs per season from 1990-95.

The back issues forced him into an early retirement, ending his playing career at just 34 before the Yankees dynasty began.

His final season became his only trip to October — and he raked, hitting .417 with a home run and four doubles against the Mariners.

“I decided to stop a little bit early,” Mattingly said on the podcast. “I probably had three or four, maybe five years left in me. I made some decisions based on family that I don’t regret at all.”

His cumulative numbers — six All-Star Games, nine Gold Gloves, 2153 hits, 222 home runs, 1,099 RBIs and zero rings, plus a .307 lifetime average and .830 OPS — were not enough for Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters from 2001-15.

Maybe the way the game is swinging, with so many modern candidates relying upon peaks rather than length, will matter for Mattingly.

Maybe so will a bigger résumé.

As manager, he won three straight NL West division titles with the Dodgers from 2013-15; he guided the Marlins for seven seasons and took home a Manager of the Year Award in 2020; he served as bench coach of the Blue Jays from 2023 through this past season, which included his first World Series appearance.

An unknown variable is the Eras Committee, whose members change.

Sunday it will feature legends Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Juan Marichal, Tony Perez, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell and Robin Yount; major league executives Mark Attanasio, Doug Melvin, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Tony Reagins and Terry Ryan; longtime statistician and historian Steve Hirdt and media members Tyler Kepner and Jayson Stark.

Will they favor strong, if relatively short, careers like Mattingly’s and Murphy’s or higher-profile superstars with PED baggage like Bonds and Clemens?