By Cary Osborne

The Lamar University basketball team opens up its season on November 14 in Dallas at Southern Methodist University. There’s a sophomore shooting guard on the Cardinal team who will likely check into the game at some point. Now 27 years old, the man who was once a top prep player in the state of Indiana has chosen basketball again.

Baseball chose the former Central High of Evansville two-sport star. With a last name Mattingly, it’s not surprising that it did. But baseball isn’t always kind, even to its own.

Fortunately for Preston Mattingly, basketball took him back.

Mattingly, the son of Dodger manager Don Mattingly and a 2006 first-round pick of the Dodgers, is in his second season playing NCAA Division I basketball for the Lamar Cardinal in Beaumont, Texas.

The 27-year-old’s final day on a baseball field was in Spring Training camp in 2012 with the New York Yankees, and he hasn’t looked back on the game. He said he spent time with his father this summer hanging around Dodger Stadium. But now he is reunited with the game he loved the most as a youth.

“To be honest, I don’t miss it at all,” Mattingly said of baseball. “I miss hanging out with the guys, but I don’t miss going 0 for 4 with three strikeouts and struggling as bad as I did. I love baseball, but I had some rough years, and I’m really hard on myself.”

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