Don Mattingly documentary 'Donnie Baseball' premieres Sunday

Don Mattingly has not played for the Yankees since 1995 and famously never won a World Series with the team, so for all his greatness his feats are beginning to fade into a distant memory.

Fortunately, some of his most passionate fans are just the right age to tell the tale, now well into middle age and well-positioned as public storytellers.

Enter MLB Network producers Jed Tuminaro, who grew up on Staten Island, and James Potocki, who grew up in Ronkonkoma.

Both are 47 years old and are behind a documentary premiering at 7:30 p.m. Sunday called “MLB Network Presents: Donnie Baseball,” about the iconic Yankee of the era between the late 1970s and late '90s championship teams.

“We’re right in that wheelhouse of kind of a Mattingly fan club,” Tuminaro said.

Mattingly, who played from 1982-95 and won the 1985 American League MVP, was one of the best hitters and best defensive first basemen of his time, before his prime and eventually his career were cut short by back problems.

But his influence extended beyond his own playing career, as the documentary illustrates, with Bernie Williams in particular noting how Mattingly helped the young players who would become a dynasty learn how it was done.

The film also discusses how then-Yankees manager and now-Mets manager Buck Showalter teamed with Mattingly in helping change a losing culture and set the stage for the Joe Torre/Derek Jeter championship teams to come.

Other interesting talkers in the piece include Wade Boggs, Ron Guidry, Mike Pagliarulo, Hal Steinbrenner and perhaps most of all George Brett, a hated Yankees villain of the era who respected and bonded with Mattingly.

But Mattingly himself is the most compelling interview, a mild surprise given that while he always has been an honest interview, he has not necessarily been an emotional one.

Now 60 and manager of the Marlins, he sat in his Evansville, Indiana, home for 2 1/2 hours with the producers and gave them plenty of material, including tearing up as he spoke about his parents’ influence on him.

“For him to sit in the chair with the cameras on and search for the answer that was truest to him now, for it to be packed with that emotion, it was a little unexpected,” Potocki said. “But you could tell from the beginning that he was there to give us everything he had.”

Tuminaro said one thing that stands out to him about Mattingly is that in a city known for “glitz and glamour,” Mattingly is an example of the sort of hard-working, no-nonsense athlete fans appreciate most.

Mattingly wonders whether overdoing it preparing to play shortened his longevity. But one gets the sense he could not have helped doing it even if he tried.

“Whether it's fans or teammates or opponents or media,” Tuminaro said, “I think in every walk of life, the people we spoke to that have come across him in one way or another have such a deep reverence and respect for him.”

Older fans will get a refresher on Mattingly’s greatness from the documentary and younger ones will get a history lesson. For those in the middle, it’s personal.

“He came at just the right time when I was getting into the game,” Potocki said. “I was 10, 11 years old, and here’s this guy hitting .350 with 20 or 30 home runs, when guys didn’t do that.

“It was so exciting to open up a pack of Topps [cards], and there he is: Don Mattingly. He was just the guy here, and he was here his whole career.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.