That it was inevitable didn’t make it any less irresistible. The number 5 could have been retired as soon as David Wright [1] took off his jersey in 2018. Many of us mentally reserved a spot for it at Citi Field before Citi Field was announced as the successor facility to Shea Stadium at the outset of 2006. No more than a season-and-a-half’s worth of exposure to the prospect who lived up to his notices, and we could have guessed a day like Saturday was coming. I don’t know what they’re building over there in the parking lot, but they need to make sure we can see 5 and take heart from it forevermore.
[2]Done! David Wright’s number was elevated to Citi Field’s highest rung on Saturday afternoon, a delightful formality whose “i” was dotted and “t” was crossed when his New York Mets Hall of Fame plaque was simultaneously unveiled upstairs from the Rotunda. The Mets, who used to do not much to remember let alone honor the players who built the best of their legacy, proceeded on the Wright track with all deliberate speed. Got him to the bigs at age 21. Got him to the rafters at age 42. Waited just long enough so his three kids can maintain tangible memories of their dad’s day in the overcast sun. Didn’t wait so long that his parents weren’t around to soak it in.
The presence of Rhon and Elisa Wright may have made me happiest Saturday — in stark contrast to the 5-2 loss the Reds pinned on the Mets [3] following the conclusion of the day’s far more pleasurable ceremonial aspects. Not only is David in his prime as a person, but those who raised him appear in the finest of fettle. I kind of fell in love with them watching the SNY documentary about their son. They wanted the best for him. They cleared a path for him. They’re proud of not just his accomplishments, but his whole being. It was all I could do to not hug them when I saw them in the press conference room prior to Saturday’s game.
[4]I don’t think David Wright’s parents are wholly unique in getting behind their child and pushing him forward, it’s just that we have evidence of how it worked out for us, and how much it meant and continues to mean to them. I don’t know what it was like inside the Wright household when our boy was a kid, but it certainly seems they understood what he wanted to do and are happy he did it (I’m not sure I fully grasp what it’s like to have been in a parent-child relationship where the emotional transactions were that clear-cut). David didn’t have to wish Rhon and Elisa were here to see this day. The long view of history is a marvelous thing, but some heels don’t have to cool until they’re ice cold.
[5]I also adored what could have been taken as the random assortment of teammates who traveled to Flushing on David’s behalf. I knew they weren’t random because I’ve been following David’s story for the half of his life that he’s been an all-time Met, yet when I glanced over my shoulder and saw Joe McEwing, Josh Satin, Cliff Floyd, and Michael Cuddyer sitting in a row waiting to hear from their friend before the ballpark as a whole would wrap its arms around him, I wanted to grab each of them and slip them into a binder. David’s story inevitably mentions them as influences and compatriots, not just guys he used to work with. Jose Reyes was there, of course, as was Daniel Murphy. Two managers, Terry Collins and Willie Randolph, plus coach Howard Johnson joined in the assemblage. HoJo’s old pal Keith Miller was David’s agent, and he was on hand, too. In 1988, I went out of my way to purchase a Keith Miller baseball card. When was the last time any Mets fan stopped to think about most of these guys? David is probably more thoughtful than most of us. A passel of columnists, reporters, and broadcasters who don’t necessarily come around that often also made sure to be back for The Captain. It was old home weekend at a home that’s not that old and a returnee who hadn’t been gone too incredibly long.
[6]Citi Field isn’t the House that Wright Built. If it was, the dimensions would have been constructed in deference to his opposite-field power. But it was immediately the House of David when it opened in 2009, and Saturday proved it always will be. He was so comfortable being who he was, which is to say always a touch uncomfortable that 42,000 people arrived en masse to see him, and many among them wore his name and number on their backs. But he gets that they did, and nobody could have been more appreciative that others thought he deserved such attention. Reverence he’d avoid if he could, but it was too late. Leave it to David, and he’d simply romanticize being a kid who got his picture taken in Norfolk with Tides like Clint Hurdle and D.J. Dozier…which he did, because what else is a kid who went to Tides games gonna romanticize?
[7]David was always one of us, geographically displaced on the surface, but with a running start. He didn’t have to subscribe to Baseball America to get a handle on Mets Triple-A prospects. He just had to get a ride with his dad, who worked security at Harbor Park in his off hours from the police force. Maybe that appreciation of how baseball comes together, from the inside out and not just on the field, explains why David maintains so many friendships with players who didn’t approach his performance level, and why more than any player I can think of was enmeshed with so much of the Mets personnel who make the Citi Field operation run. It was no accident he could offer up warm and textured memories when asked in his press conference about the late public relations specialist Shannon Forde and the late team photographer Marc Levine. It was no accident that practically the first words out of his mouth when he stepped to the mic during his ceremonies were to acknowledge Tony Carullo, the longtime visiting clubhouse manager who was receiving the Mets’ Hall of Fame Achievement Award.
[8]It was never an accident that David was everybody’s captain from just about the moment he showed up at Shea. The old saying suggests you should treat people the way you wish to be treated. I suspect David Wright didn’t dwell on how he’d be treated. He put those around him first, including however many tens of thousands paid their way into Shea or Citi on a given night. It came through when he addressed his fellow Mets fans in the crowd [9] on Saturday. David Wright forever came across as our hometown kid. It doesn’t matter that he’s from Norfolk, Va. He grew up in Metsopotamia. Everything about him can seem a little corny, a little hokey, a little less than big-time. That’s because he’s one of us — the corny, the hokey, life-size at our biggest. He’s never put on pretensions that he was any more than that, except he played ball. Sometimes we forget what a bleeping star he was.
[10]Good thing we are able to gaze up at 5 to remind us.