QUEENS, NY — David Wright hoped that he would be able to keep his emotions in check a bit better than he had in his final MLB game on Sept. 29, 2018. But before he could take his seat after entering the confines of Citi Field to adoring applause ahead of his No. 5 jersey retirement on Saturday afternoon, he had already failed.
Shortly after, Mother Nature followed suit. The heavens opened up on what had otherwise been a sunny day as his No. 5 plaque atop the Queens ballpark was being unveiled.
“Those are tears,” long-time Mets radio voice and emcee, Howie Rose, quipped.
It was all rather fitting considering the path of Wright’s career, the sudden and almost unfair end to it all after spinal stenosis forced him to call it quits seven years ago — the gravitas hitting the teary-eyed third baseman and team captain on that night.
“That meant the world,” Wright said. “That night, I fully realized the extended relationship with the city of New York and, in particular, this Mets fan base… I’m not sure who cried more that night, me or my daughters, who stayed up past their bedtime to cheer their dad on in his final day.”
Saturday helped put a bow on the Virginia native’s mercurial career. He was one of baseball’s very best players and on pace for the Hall of Fame through the first 10 years of his career before the injuries hit.
While it will keep him out of Cooperstown, he is now in the pantheon of the Mets organization, becoming just the 10th player or manager to have his number retired. He also became the 35th member of the club’s Hall of Fame.
“If you would’ve told a young David Wright to close his eyes and imagine this day, I would’ve said, ‘You’re crazy. No way. Impossible,'” Wright said. “Then I would’ve went out to my backyard in Virginia and hit off a homemade tee with balls that were falling apart at the seams until it got dark outside to prove you right… To borrow [my kids’] term, this sure doesn’t feel like for real life.”
It was that work ethic and constant desire to prove that he belonged — Wright still battles with the disbelief that this is all still happening — that made him a hero in Queens. He owns a bevy of franchise records and is the only other Met, alongside Ed Kranepool, to spend his entire career with the club.
But All-Star Games and accolades won’t fill that one obvious void in his trophy cabinet, one that he found pertinent enough to address.
“I never accomplished my goal in bringing a World Series back to Queens, but I promise you, I gave it everything I had and wanted it just as badly as you do,” he said.
Consolation is usually not in the vocabulary of as tenacious a competitor as Wright was. But Saturday’s honor proved to be the exception to it all.
“We have truly formed something extraordinary in this game,” Wright said. “An 18-year-old kid from Virginia, having the privilege of being a lifelong New York Met, and forming an unbreakable bond with the best fan base in baseball.”
