Captain deserves better fate than this
IT doesn’t matter how inevitable the announcement may have been. It still stings. It still stinks. It still adds one more layer between whatever would constitute a happy ending for David Wright, and the ending that seems more and more likely for him as a baseball player.
This was the cold, just-thefacts-ma’am statement from the Mets, released late Monday afternoon under the heading “Medical Updates” (alongside such fellow banged-up teammates as Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Yoenis Cespedes and Michael Conforto):
David Wright — No baseball activity today. Terminated his rehabilitation assignment. Will be re-examined in New York later this week.
And this was the statement from Wright himself, which only breaks your heart if you happen to have a heart: “After playing a few games, I continued to have shoulder pain. So I decided to go to the doctor and get it checked out. Will make my decision going forward after my appointment.” There was a lot of cautious hope around the Mets last week when Wright began his latest stab at rehabilitation from the back, neck and shoul
der in- juries that have robbed him of all but 75 games in the past three years. He played in three games at St. Lucie, including two at third base. He had one hit in 10 at-bats.
In a best-case scenario, Wright would have made it through a week or two of rehab games and then been promoted to the major league team sometime after the roster is expanded later this week. That would have allowed the Mets an opportunity to sell something other than the shell game that is their shell of a roster for September, and give Wright a few more hurrahs in Flushing.
Would that have made it easier for him to retire? Would that have made it easier to say goodbye — for him, for the franchise, for the fans?
The three-pronged relationship among Wright, the Mets and Mets fans is unlike anything before in Mets history. Wright grew up rooting for the Mets because his hometown team was the Tri
ple-A Nor- folk Tides. Mets fans grew to accept him as one of their own, and Wright was happy to be seen that way. He could have left, and didn’t. Part of that was the eight-year, $138 million contract he signed in 2013 — but he could have gotten paid elsewhere, too. To understand what Wright felt about the Mets, it’s best to go back two years, to the VIP club at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium the day before the 2015 World Series commenced. Those prior six weeks may turn out to be among the last times we ever see Wright as a player, but he didn’t know that then. He was wide-eyed and eager to see what the World Series looked like from the inside. As a Met. “You see the New York Mets’ logo, and it’s right next to the World Series logo,” Wright said after inspecting the field at Kauffman Stadium. “And I don’t care who you are, when you see that, all you can do is smile and enjoy the moment.”
The Mets have been in existence since 1962, and until Wright came along, they had managed to foul up every long-term player relationship at one time or another. Tom Seaver was traded under acrimonious conditions. Jerry Koosman, Buddy Harrel
son, Jerry Grote, Tug McGraw — all of them ended their careers elsewhere. Rusty Staub was exiled. None of the ’86 Mets’ tenures ended graciously. Jose Reyes was allowed to leave.
Only Eddie Kranepool was a lifetime Met, and as terrific a career as he had for 18 years, he wasn’t a fraction of the player Wright was at his peak. This was the player the Mets had eternally sought. He loved it here. He liked New York, sure. But he loved being a Met. That mattered. That matters. But so do the realities of the human body.
And you wonder who would possibly want to repeat all over again the hours and weeks and months that Wright has already endured, knowing it might only keep him on a field for a few days. Or a few innings.
There is a sense that Wright wants to keep that fight alive, and if that’s what he wants, Godspeed. Maybe there really is a happy ending to be forged here. Maybe Wright can somehow be a baseball Bill Walton, who once missed 363 out of 410 games in a five-year stretch with feet so painful, he wondered if he’d be better off without them, then managed one final brilliant turn on stage with the ’86 Celtics.
Wright is entitled to try. And the rest of us are entitled to brace ourselves for the next time his name is included in the Mets’ medical report. That rarely carries a happy recap.