Dodgers' Don Mattingly may be the one laughing this season From Phoenix -- For those who wondered how Don Mattingly survived his first season as Dodgers manager without going bonkers, well, it turns out he did. He just waited until he disappeared into the cornfields to show it. Back in Evansville, Ind., this guy had a winter like Clayton Kershaw has a curveball. Back among family and friends, the studious and subtle Mattingly let his hair down so far, our jaws tripped over it. First, he was Donnie Nutcracker. For three nights, he played the part of a gray-haired woman named Mother Ginger in the Evansville Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker." If you don't believe it, google "Don Mattingly and Mother Ginger" and check out the video. It shows Mattingly, dressed in drag, rolling on to a stage atop a giant skirt while children dance around him. He spends a couple of gleeful minutes moving his arms in varying motions that, at one point, resemble what appears to be a Dodgers steal sign. I swear, I am not making this up. Mattingly, who appeared at the behest of his dancer wife, Lori, said Sunday it was "fun, outside the box" and then uttered a quote you will never read in Pointe magazine. "You know, those kid dancers were damn good," said the baseball ballerina. He was also Donnie Trick Shot. In a video of trick sports shots performed by son Preston and his buddies, Mattingly makes a cameo appearance in which he twice knocks a San Francisco Giants cap off the head of a person in a bear outfit with a baseball. Again, true story. You can find this video on YouTube under "Trickwinkle." It begins with Mattingly spotting the bear with the offensive cap and shouting, "What the hell is that?" He then throws a baseball that knocks the Giants cap off the bear's head, at which point he replaces it with a Dodgers cap to the tune of, "Don't Stop Believin'." Moments later, the bear reappears wearing the same Giants cap and Mattingly shouts, "I thought I told you to take that hat off" and throws another bullet that knocks off the cap, which is again replaced by a Dodgers cap. "I did it because my son asked me, and it was fun," Mattingly said. My wife was worried that I would upset Giant fans but, c'mon, if you can't take a joke ... One year after steamrollering critics like me with a steady hand that helped the Dodgers stay strong through a turbulent summer, Mattingly is now clearly confident enough to take a joke. "I'm serious about what I do, but I don't mind making fun of myself a little bit," Mattingly said Sunday with a grin. The difference is, this year, we're not laughing at him, we're laughing with him. All the stories about a guy who couldn't fill out a lineup card or visit a mound have disappeared under a surprise season in which he nurtured the Cy Young Award winner, the true MVP, a plus-.500 record, and 25 wins in the Dodgers' last 35 games. "I love what I'm doing, I love being in L.A., I feel a lot more comfortable now," Mattingly said. He's not the only one. At this moment, for the life of me, I can't think of a better person to manage this odd collection of players. The Dodgers appear to be the definition of average, but Mattingly has shown he can adorn average with enough makeup and pearls to make you dream of something much greater. "C'mon, I'm a believer," he said. If we play at our level, I don't think I'm dreaming to say we should be competitive, we should be right there. For most managers, that would be just another trite saying, but you want to believe it from Mattingly because he's just so honest about everything else. He doesn't say anything in front of a microphone that he hasn't already said at somebody's locker. But he tells the truth, and it's this honesty that makes his players appreciate him and play hard for him. "They might not always want to hear what I'm saying, but at least they know where they stand," Mattingly said. I think players respond to that. Last summer, he said James Loney listened to too many couch batting coaches, even referring to one of them as "Uncle Harry," and Loney responded. Last fall, he truthfully said Andre Ethier's anger caused him to give away 100 at-bats, and Ethier has shown up this spring prickly and ready to prove him wrong. When asked Sunday about the key to this season, Mattingly initially refused to place pressure on one or two people, and then, as always, he honestly relented. "The key is going to be Matt [Kemp] and Kersh [Kershaw]," he said. They had huge years, they're going to have to do it again; I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. Sometimes Mattingly sounds like an ex-player, sometimes he sounds like a fan, but always he sounds like a manager, and now he's sounding like a Dodger. After the workout Sunday, we conducted this interview on empty bleachers on a far side of the complex instead of Mattingly's office because he didn't want to walk past a long line of autograph seekers without signing. Sure enough, when the interview ended, he walked to the line and signed for everyone - all 53 of them - in a scene that felt like a transition. "Used to be lots of Yankee fans," said Donnie Blue with a huge grin. Now it's mostly Dodger fans.