Associated Press FILE PHOTO — Steubenville native Rich Donnelly, at the time coaching third base for the Mariners, greets former Yankees bench coach Tony Pena during a 2014 game. Donnelly, who coached third base for the Marlins during their 1997 World Series Championship, will attend a 25th anniverary reunion of the title run next week.

The 1997 Major League Baseball season will be one that Steubenville native Rich Donnelly never forgets.

If he even starts to become cloudy, he simply has to look at his ring finger to conjure up the greatest memory.

Donnelly was the third-base coach for the Florida Marlins, which became the first Wild Card team to win the World Series when they defeated the Cleveland Indians in seven games to win the franchise’s first of two world championships.

The organization will host a reunion and 25-year celebration of that club next weekend when the Milwaukee Brewers are in town. Donnelly and then manager Jim Leyland — as well as many of the players and other coaches — will return to take part in the festivities.

“I am really looking forward to this and seeing all the guys again,” Donnelly said.

According to Donnelly, there will be a luncheon, recognition at the ballpark and the former Marlin players will take part in a celebrity softball game against first responders from the Miami area.

“It’s going to be a great weekend,” Donnelly said. “I am sure there will be a lot of laughter and tears. Plus, a lot of lies will be told. I am sure all of those home runs hit 400 feet will now be 500 (feet) and broken-bat hits will be line drives.”

Many baseball people are superstitious and Donnelly shared a story that could have played a role in the Marlins getting past the Braves in the 1997 NLCS. Obviously, when Donnelly, Leyland, Tommy Sandt, John Cangelosi, John Wehner and Bobby Bonilla were together with the Pirates, the Braves were a thorn in their side, especially in 1992 when Francisco Cabrera singled home former Pirate Sid Bream to stun Pittsburgh.

“The Braves had been our bugaboo,” Donnelly recalled. “Beating the Braves was sort of like redemption for the Pirates guys.”

Prior to a game in Atlanta, Sandt literally “buried a picture of Cabrera” near the old Fulton County Stadium.

“Tommy, God rest his soul, said ‘we can get over (the Braves” now,” Donnelly said. “Even before the playoffs, that team and season had so many twists and turns, but when we picked up Counsell, Darren Daulton, it really seemed to click and we just took off from there.”

Still, however, the Marlins finished eight games behind the Braves in the standings.

“We played our best baseball after those trades,” Donnelly said. “We were 20 games over .500 after acquiring those guys. We had a bunch of nice guys on the team and Leyland thought we needed a rebel riser and Daulton was the guy who shook things up in the clubhouse.”

In the aforementioned NLCS, Leyland called a team meeting to point out that if they were going to get to the World Series they’d have to beat either Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine or John Smoltz twice.

“We won the series 4-2 and beat Maddux twice, which is like a miracle,” Donnelly said.

The Marlins and Indians won alternately during the World Series, but Cleveland was on the brink of the championship, but Jose Mesa blew a save to send the game to extra innings.

“That team was the first in baseball history to be losing a game in the ninth inning of a seventh game of the World Series to win the game,” Donnelly said.

Seemingly before the clubhouse had even aired out from the post-game celebration, many of those Marlins players were gone. Florida literally tore its team apart and rebuilt.

“I’ve not seen a lot of these guys since that season because it was like right after the parade in downtown Miami was over, half the team had been traded,” Donnelly said. “It fell apart quickly and and we just didn’t get the chance to see those guys again.”

Donnelly has kept in touch over the years with some of the players, including Jeff Conine, who is currently an assistant coach at Florida International University. Ironically, Donnelly’s son, Tim, is an assistant hitting coach at Western Kentucky University and the teams played each other. Tim was a bat boy with that Marlins club.

Rich Donnelly said he’s looking forward to catching up with the likes of Bonilla, Charles Johnson, who was the Marlins catcher, Livan Hernandez, Gary Sheffield and Edgar Renteria, who was a late addition to the club that proved to be one of the key pieces.

Another player who Donnelly is excited to chat with will be in the opposite dugout. Craig Counsell, who scored the game-winning run on a Renteria hit, is now the Brewers manager.

Not only did Counsell, who was nickamed “The Chicken,” score the game-winning run, he crossed the plate as the stadium clock struck midnight.

Donnelly immediately recalled his late daughter, Amy, asking him about what he was telling runners as he sent them home and she jokingly said, “the chicken runs at midnight.”

“Craig didn’t know about the chicken runs at midnight until about three years after the game,” Donnelly said. “I talked to Charles Johnson about a month ago and he had just found about it.”

Because of the chicken runs at midnight and the recent publishing of a book about it, Donnelly believes it’s going to be an “emotional” weekend with the Marlins.

“A lot of the players just found out about it more recently and they’re amazed it happened,” Donnelly said. “I didn’t say anything when it happened that night because it was such a happy mood and didn’t want everyone to feel sad and sorrow for me.”

Donnelly, who says he wears his World Series ring “occasionally” will have it on his finger next weekend.

“That ring is a reminder not only of that season and team, but for me it’s a reminder of all the years I spent in baseball from little league in Steubenville to American Legion ball to Xavier University to rooting for the Bucs and then coaching for the Bucs, it’s just magnified every time I look at that ring,” Donnelly said.