David Wright's childhood dream had gone one step further on Saturday afternoon as his No. 5 was retired by the Mets at Citi Field.
NEW YORK — As David Wright stood in the middle of the diamond at Citi Field on Saturday afternoon, the dream had come full circle, perhaps scripted even better than the star third baseman could have ever imagined.
All of the fans in Citi Field stood out their feet, many wearing Wright's iconic No. 5, as he was enshrined with the ultimate honor given by a franchise.
As the former third baseman emerged on the field he stepped onto a gold third base, right where he belonged at the hot corner of Citi Field. Then his number was retired by the Mets forever.
"If you had told a young David Wright to close his eyes and imagine this day, I would have said, ‘You’re crazy. No way. Impossible,’" Wright told a capacity crowd at Citi Field. "Then I would have went out in 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.”
Growing up in the Old Dominion State, Wright had been a fan of the Mets with its then-Double-A affiliate, the Norfolk Tides, in his backyard. Out of Hickory High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, he had been drafted by his favorite team
The ascension began.
"It makes me emotional because he's such a great kid, very humble and he wanted it so bad, but he was patient," said Mets great and former minor league manager Howard Johnson. "He just wanted to get all the knowledge he could."
It did not take long, but Wright went from chasing down autographs of Mike Piazza as a newly-drafted teenager and to become one of the most beloved Mets players in franchise history, along with its leader in hits, runs and RBIs, among others.
Wright is now woven into the fabric of the Mets just as much as the club is woven into his.
"He meant a lot. He meant a lot to the organization. He meant a lot to the players on the team," former manager Terry Collins said Friday. "You saw the respect he got from the other players, not just on our team but around the league and the respect that he has for the fans. Even today, he is absolutely humbled by this."
On Saturday, Wright became the first homegrown player to have his number retired by the team. He was also the 35th person to be inducted to the Mets' Hall of Fame.
A little less than seven years prior, Wright's career, which included seven All-Star selections, two Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers, had come to a painstaking end due to a debilitating back injury. He thanked the fans with a tear-filled goodbye.
"I guess I truly realized at that moment that the bond that I’m going to have with this city and this organization for the rest of my life," Wright said Saturday.
That relationship was on full display as Wright stepped to the microphone as a light rain began to fall. The crowd remained standing and stationary in front of their seats. He had earned that admiration throughout his career, playing through injuries, delivering some of the grandest moments and spending countless hours with the fans throughout it all.
On Saturday, the captain was celebrated, not through heartache but with appreciation for what he had provided the franchise and the fan base in his 15 seasons. He praised his teammates, including Jose Reyes, Michael Cuddyer and others, for helping him reach the pantheon of Mets legends.
"Today, I view this as an incredible, organic relationship between me and my family, the city, the organization, the fan base," Wright said. "To me, the Mets fan base is a blue-collar, bring your lunch pail to work type of fan base, and that’s how I was raised, certainly, but that’s how I tried to approach the game each day, coming to the ballpark was to provide that blue-collar mentality, and I think that’s why that relationship with the Mets fan base has become so special."
In his final game, Wright said "I bleed orange and blue." The fan base could relate to that.
They had the chance to see Wright grow in front of their eyes while sharing memories.
They reveled in the highlights, like winning a division title in 2006 and reaching the World Series in 2015. They shared in his tribulations, like a 2007's collapse and the excruciating reality of Wright's spinal stenosis diagnosis.
Wright embodied the fulfillment of a dream, and while it never finished with a World Series crown, Wright's aspirations came to their most lofty reality on Saturday.
"It’s my opinion that in sports, in school work, whatever it is, that you have a ceiling and you have a floor and do whatever you can to reach that ceiling," Wright said.
Wright not only reached his ceiling in baseball, but he took it one step further and reached the rafters, where his number will stay forever.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NY Mets: David Wright No. 5 retired in memorable ceremony at Citi Field
Category: Baseball
