David Wright is a baseball player, but in a lot of ways, for the Mets and its loyal fanbase, he is much more. For an entire generation of us—my generation especially—he was the franchise. He personified everything that we loved about the Mets, and everything that we loved about baseball. While my fandom journey began, fortuitously, right around the time of the Mike Piazza trade, Wright, a homegrown talent and a top prospect, elevated my love for the team to new heights. Wright was the closest thing I
can imagine to what the earliest generation of Mets fans felt about Seaver, an icon and full embodiment of the team whose jersey he donned every day.
I feel incredibly grateful to have watched his entire career and to have been an active and engaged Mets fan from his first game through his last. I have witnessed some of his greatest moments in person, from his 2006 walk-off against Mariano Rivera and the Yankees, to his World Series home run in 2015. When he announced his final game, I bought tickets immediately upon watching the press conference on a social media stream while at work. I was one of the lucky 43,928 fans who got to see Wright’s final game on September 29, 2008, and I was one of the 42,605 fans who got to see the organization bestow the greatest honor a franchise can bestow upon a player: retiring his number and immortalizing him forever.
I have been blessed enough to have been able to attend all of the Mets number retirement ceremonies of my lifetime from Mike Piazza onward—Piazza, Jerry Koosman, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry—as well as several Hall of Fame induction games. I can confidently say that the energy levels at Wright’s induction were beyond anything I had experienced for any of these ceremonies. That so many of us grew up with Wright and got to see his entire career before our eyes, that he was The Captain and carried the mantle with honor and pride, that he was so many people’s favorite player, that he really took time for the fans and had an active presence in the New York City community, helped bring out so many people who adored Wright as if he was our own family. It was touching to see just how loved he was.
There were a few things that really struck me during the ceremony. The first is the range of eras that were represented on the field, proving that Wright was a bridge between so many years of Mets baseball. From ’86 Mets like Howard Johnson to early 2000’s Mets like Joe McEwing, to mid-2000’s Mets like Cliff Floyd—incidentally, Floyd looked like he could still take the baseball field today—to the last decade of Mets baseball in Daniel Murphy, to even some forgotten guys like Josh Satin whom I loved, the dais really ran the gamut across so many eras, with Wright being their key connection. It was especially nice seeing Willie Randolph there, and he got an appropriate cheer from a crowd that hasn’t seen all that much of him since his unceremonious firing 17 years ago. He was followed by Terry Collins, who will forever get a rousing ovation in Queens following the “Ass in the Jackpot” video.
I will say I was a little surprised to a) not see any of the other retired numbers present (especially Piazza), and b) not see any of the prior living team captains present on the field (notably John Franco, who is seemingly always at Citi Field), which I think could have been a nice touch and tribute to the team’s most recent captain. It might be due to scheduling given the summer timing, but it would have been cool to see the other captains and legends return to celebrate him; however, it may just have been that the team wanted to keep this more personal to Wright’s journey, which is great too.
Speaking of bridging eras, it was truly heartwarming to see so many Wright jerseys in the crowd again, as it really felt like 80% of folks in the stands had a ‘5’ on their back. What was especially heartening was, again, seeing the span in ages, from little kids who were not even alive to see Wright play a game, all the way up to parents and grandparents who cheered Wright along from day one. Wright again really felt like a connecting tissue between the entire franchise, and having his number 5 up there alongside other legends will solidify his place in franchise lore.
The biggest takeaway for me was the sense of peace that Wright presented in his speech. Wright, for me, has always been the biggest sports ‘what if’ of my lifetime. He was on a Hall of Fame path, destined for 400+ home runs, 2,500+ hits, and Cooperstown right around this time, had everything played out as it should have. “The Wright Way” documentary on SNY touched on all his accomplishments, his trials and tribulations, and everything in between, and it was probably the most in-depth look I have personally seen to the struggles he faced post-spinal stenosis diagnosis. I often lament this as a fan, but I was truly emotional seeing Wright stand up before us as someone who seemed to have no regrets or ill feelings about how things ended, and someone who just felt appreciation for the opportunity to play the sport he loved for a living for the team he grew up supporting.
The one regret he expressed was not bringing a World Series title to New York, and you really felt he meant it, both as a fan himself and as a player and captain who felt a personal responsibility to do so. But aside from that, Wright spoke often about his support system: his parents, his brothers, and his wife and three children. Despite injuries taking away what could have been, he often exclaimed how he gave all he had to the fans and the city, and doesn’t seem to feel any sense of sadness beyond that about the way things turned out. Wright has built a fulfilling life beyond baseball, but will remain a Met forever and, I would imagine, has a door open at Citi Field forever should he wish to return in any capacity.
As a Mets fan who continues wondering what could have been, this peace gave me a feeling of immense joy and put a nice bow on his career. Yesterday felt like the true ending of an era of Flushing, one that started when the team drafted him 38th overall in 2001, one that crossed two stadiums, three separate decades, and two iconic teams (2006, 2015). Wright’s place is now forever engraved up alongside some of the best to ever put on the orange and blue. The Mets, as they always do, did a beautiful job with the tribute video, and video they showed, narrated by ‘Nuke’ LaLoose himself, Tim Robbins, beautifully synthesized and summarized a career that goes beyond words. Howie Rose, as always, offered a poignant tribute to a franchise legend and brought some of his trademark wit and humor when he told Wright not to “pull a Messier” because he was out of tissues—any New York Rangers fan can appreciate this reference.
It’s easy to imagine that this is the last number retirement ceremony we will see for some time, perhaps even until this current crop of players retires, and I think the team and the fans understood that. The Mets, to their credit, did a wonderful job, replacing the older, faded retired numbers with fresh, new plaques, providing Wright with some cute gifts—a framed jersey, a mural of his number 5 with pictures of players from his career—and gave the player and the fans an afternoon to remember. We even got a Wilpons mention in Wright’s speech, which gave us another chance to rain loud boos upon them—by the next ceremony, the player being honored may not even have a large enough connection to the Wilpons to even mention them by name.
Not even the brief rain shower or another bad loss could dampen the joy that yesterday’s beautiful ceremony. That is the power of David Wright, ultimately. Even through the worst years of Mets baseball, he gave us a reason to smile and a reason to cheer. Even in the worst years, he gave it his all, and that’s the only thing fans can really ask of a baseball player. But Wright will forever be so much more, and now his status as a franchise legend has been cemented forever.
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