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He arrived aboard a support plane so small that the pilot asked him to change places during the flight to balance the weight on board. He had slept only two hours, in this piece of subconscious agitation where blur dreams and reality. Growing up in Norfolk, David Wright harassed Mets farmers for autographs at the Tides Games. In high school, he played for a demonstration team called the Mets who traveled along the east coast. And at age 21, he bypassed La Guardia airport and watched the shea stage, all those empty blue and orange seats waiting to throw them away.
The Mets are known for their exaggerated perspectives and Wright was accompanied by his own breathless story. Have you heard of the home run that he hit when he crossed the central field barrier at 16,400 feet, striking so hard in an old oak that a six-foot branch flew into the yard of a neighbour? "Just like Roy Hobbs," said his travel coach, Ron Smith.
But Wright was different from Gregg Jefferies and Generation K. He delivered, changing the prospects of a punch-line organization as soon as he touched it. Wright made his Mets debut in July 2004. Pedro Martinez signed it in December, Carlos Beltran a month later. In 2006, the Mets entered part of the World Series and Wright was really throwing them away.
He wrote greeting cards at the clubhouse, drank milk before the matches and used Met3Bagger as his email address. He received a standing ovation on the road at San Diego's Petco Park after a dive with his bare hands on the outdoor field lawn. Cliff Floyd, former thief of Mets, once joked: "I sometimes read the mail of his fans – the girls ask to marry him – and that makes me sick. One of these days, I swear I'm going to hit him. Floyd sweated with sweat after weightlifting sessions, slipped into Wright's tight polo shirts and XL in the XL. But Wright, impossible to offend, was still carrying Floyd's Louis Vuitton baggage on the road as a rookie.
As a result of the era of steroids, Wright seemed approachable and certain not to be disappointed, son of a deputy police chief and former narcotics captain who reprimanded him for the price of his apartment in Flatiron District and did not let him buy a new car hit the big leagues. His best friend on the team would have been the ball receiver, Dave Racaniello.
In the first two seasons of Wright, I was the author of Mets The New York Times, a job that required regular profiles of the young star. Before a game in Oakland, I was in the elevator outside the visitors' pavilion, about to get on the press booth. As the doors closed, Wright stopped them. "Hey," he began, "I wanted to thank you for the story you told me the other day."
"No problem," I replied, and let the doors close. He stopped them again.
"There is only one thing," he continued. "I saw you quote my father in history and he said that he had never spoken to you."
My stomach has returned. I quoted his father and I remembered talking to him. Could I call the wrong person? Could any one have claimed to be Rhon Wright of the Norfolk Police Department?
"I know it's serious," Wright continued, "so we'll obviously have to inform your bosses." The temperature has been two years away from a plagiarism scandal. I'll be fired for sure. Wright must have noticed the panic on my face because he had doubled his laughter. "I'm kidding you," he said, letting the doors close. Floyd had clearly cleared it.
The Mets led the East of the National League by seven games with 17 games in 07 and three and a half games with 17 games in 2008. They collapsed both times, but Wright was not to blame, accumulating Silver Sluggers and Gold Gloves both seasons. He was so young. He would have more chances.
"At the moment everything is perfect," said former Mets first-year goaltender Doug Mientkiewicz in 2005. "He's young, he's single and he's handsome. Everyone loves him and the world is at his feet. But one day, you feel this change and everything changes and it's not the same anymore. "
For all, except maybe Throwing, there is not as much chance as you think. In 2009, Wright, who was then struggling on the plate, was booed at home for the first time, was on the disabled list for the first time and finished with a losing record for the first time since he was a recruit. He was always part of the All Star team that year and three more years later, but the injuries have followed one another: shoulder, back, neck, the worst type of Triple Crown. Diagnosed with chronic spinal stenosis, he needed more than four hours of physical therapy to get to the field. The last time I wrote about Wright, for SI in 2010, the story was titled "Mr. Met's Essays," and he still called afterwards to say thank you. I kept the message for a long time, to remind myself of what grace looks like.
Since May 2016, Wright has undergone three surgeries, had two daughters, and played no game, only visible on rehab missions in front of scattered crowds at the Mets spring home in Port St. Lucie. "I hope to be at the end of tears," he told Citi Field on 13 September at the press conference announcing his retirement, although this is obviously not the case.
Wright is 35 years old and if you stop at his face, you would swear he has not aged since that night spread on the grass in San Diego. But his body was broken long ago. He will start on third on the last Saturday of the regular season, not because he's qualified from a distance, but because he wants Olivia Shea and Madison to see their father as baseball will see him. forever: Met3Bagger.
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