For Mets org and fans, Wright's story is already complete

This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo’s Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

NEW YORK -- To explain why David Wright’s number retirement is such a big deal to so many people, I want to excerpt the first two graphs of my acknowledgements section from “The Captain,” the memoir I co-authored with Wright in 2020.

On one of my first afternoons as an MLB.com intern in 2007, I stood in the Shea Stadium clubhouse as my mentor, Marty Noble, scanned the banks of lockers to offer me a scouting report on various Mets players. So-and-so was a good guy. So-and-so was a great quote.

“And David,” Marty said, motioning to Wright’s locker, “is what everyone says he is.”

Covering Wright over the next decade-plus -- past the end of his playing career, into his retirement and through his Mets Hall of Fame ceremony this Saturday at Citi Field -- Wright proved that point repeatedly. He was gracious with his time and graceful in the clubhouse, willing to say the things that mattered and capable of stating them with eloquence. He did not shirk responsibility, ever.

More than that, he acted as an older brother for a generation of Mets, teaching them the things that came naturally to him.

“He just does everything the right way -- annoyingly so, sometimes,” said one of Wright’s best friends, longtime Mets bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello. “Like, it’s incredible. You talk about somebody who could go into politics -- there’s no skeletons.”

Politics, of course, was never Wright’s calling. What he chose was baseball, a sport that alternately loved and loathed him, blessed him and cursed him. Wright was given a Hall of Fame skill set and the work ethic to nurture it. Then the game took it all away without any designs on returning it.

Because Wright is human, he has pondered the what-ifs of his career. He has chosen to accept them. Rather than ruminate on time lost to injuries in his 30s, Wright is grateful for the 14 seasons he did have in the Majors. Rather than focus on the fact that he may never make it to Cooperstown, Wright feels humbled that 32 Hall of Fame voters chose to recognize him in January. Rather than focus on his lack of a World Series ring, Wright cherishes the fact that he made it to a Fall Classic at a time in his career when that was not a given.

The basement of Wright’s home is full of curated mementoes from his playing career -- a Mets World Series jersey and a Team USA one from the World Baseball Classic, along with signed bats from several of the peers (mostly third basemen) that he respected most. There’s a No. 5 panel from the Green Monster in Boston, which Dustin Pedroia presented to him before his retirement. The entire room drips with nostalgia.

Saturday’s ceremony will cast a similar glow across a wider space. Figures from Wright’s past have been flying in from across the country to attend. Fans have had the date marked on their calendars for months, with the game virtually sold out. They’re all coming for Wright. Who gets to experience that sort of thing in life?

Wright does not want people to feel bad for him, because baseball gave him so much -- a career, a dream life, ultimately a wife and three children. Saturday’s ceremony will force perspective for him. Are there things Wright would change, if given the chance? Yes, like all of us, he would fix some imperfections in his story.

That doesn’t mean he’d ever complain about the way it all happened.