Buck Showalter did just about everything in baseball.

One thing he never did was get to a World Series.

The same could have been said for his former minor league teammate, Don Mattingly — until now, as the Blue Jays open the World Series against the Dodgers on Friday in Toronto with Mattingly as the bench coach.

And Showalter — who played with Mattingly at Double-A Nashville in 1981 in the Yankees farm system and later was his coach and then manager in The Bronx from 1990 until Mattingly retired after the ’95 season — understands how important it is to him.