This Week in Mets Quotes: O Captain! My Captain!

Lots of interesting, funny, idiotic, and insightful things were said by David Wright—and about David Wright—recently. Here are some of our favorites.

O Captain! My Captain!

“It almost feels like that feeling you get when you come home from a long trip. You’ve been away, and you get the chance to come home.” -David Wright [MLB]

“My three wonderful kids often use the term ‘for real life’ when on occasion they’re telling the truth. To borrow their term, this sure doesn’t feel like for real life.” -David Wright whose kids definitely watch a lot of Bluey [New York Times]

“I was so lucky. I think seeing the faces that made an impression on my career as a baseball player and a person the last few days, I’ve become even more appreciative of how lucky I was.” -David Wright [MLB]

“I can’t sit here and tell you that I’m good with where I’m at right now [Wright said 7 years ago]. I’m at peace with the work and the time and the effort and dedication I put into this. But I’m certainly not at peace with the end result.” -David Wright [New York Times]

“Very few athletes get the ending they want — that storybook ending. I certainly wouldn’t call mine a storybook ending, but it’s better than 99 percent of athletes get.” -David Wright [New York Times]

“I view this as an incredible, organic relationship between me and my family and the city, the organization, the fan base. To me, the Mets’ fan base is a blue-collar, bring-your-lunch-pail-to-work kind of fan base. That’s how I tried to approach the game each day. I think that’s why the relationship with the Mets fan base has become so special.” -David Wright [New York Times]

“He was The Guy you wanted to be like. To be able to have that relationship in this game with the fans is something special.” -Brandon Nimmo [New York Times]

“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.’” -Anthony DiComo [MLB]

“David is one of the greatest players. If he’s not hurt, he’s probably gonna have a chance to be in the Hall of Fame. A great leader, a great person, a great teammate. I’m so excited because he deserves this. I think he is the face and captain of the Mets. We’ve had a lot of people go through the Mets like [Tom] Seaver [and others], and he’s just right there with the greats.” -Billy Wagner [New York Post]

“He just does everything the right way — annoyingly so, sometimes. Like, it’s incredible. You talk about somebody who could go into politics — there’s no skeletons.” -Dave Racaniello [MLB]

“He meant a lot to the organization. He’s absolutely humbled by what’s gonna happen [Saturday]. And I talked to him and told him, ‘If you don’t get hurt, we’re gonna be talking about what’s gonna happen [later] in July [at the Hall of Fame].’ But he was just happy to do what he could do as long as he could do it.” -Terry Collins [New York Post]

“…in the bottom of the ninth on May 19, 2006, with a runner on second and two outs, Mariano Rivera intentionally walked Carlos Delgado to bring Wright to the plate.”

“I remember just trying to calm myself down. Your heartbeat is pumping through your chest. It’s the Subway Series, you’re a young kid,” he said. “You’re emotional, and times that by 1,000 as a young player facing Mariano Rivera, facing the Yankees.”

Even more than a decade later, Wright lamented missing the 1-1 pitch from Rivera, a cutter left in the middle of the plate that he fouled back. “You blew it,” he told himself.

Two pitches later, against a better cutter from Rivera, Wright stayed on an even plane and mashed the ball to center. Johnny Damon was playing in to try to throw the runner out at home on a base hit in front of him. As Wright hopped down the first-base line — you can still see it in your mind — the ball outran Damon to the warning track in center.

“It’s certainly a proud moment in my career and one that I remember fairly vividly,” Wright said. “You want to be considered one of the elite in the game, and in order to do that you have to be productive against the best to ever do it. Certainly he’s one of the best to ever do it.” -Tim Britton [New York Times]

“Q: That moment when (then-manager) Mickey Callaway removed you before the fifth inning of your farewell game.

A: I think the first thing that came to my mind was: This’ll be the last time I ever put on a baseball uniform as a baseball player. And that hit me hard because, to that point, it’s what I loved to do. When people ask, “What are your hobbies?” mine were simple: play baseball, practice baseball. So I think, at the moment, 30 years of baseball memories start just flashing in your mind as you’re walking off the field for the last time. I’m not an emotional person to begin with; it hit me like a ton of bricks, in that you lived your life a certain way to try to become the best baseball player possible, and it comes to an end instantaneously. And, for me, it was just the reality of the situation of I’m no longer going to be a baseball player. And that was difficult for me” -Steve Serby [New York Post]

“Tom Seaver was lost in a trade once, lost on a managerial oversight another time, and was in the throes of dementia by the time the team built him a statue tall enough to dwarf Goliath to honor his accomplishments. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden spent the better part of 25 years winning trophies with the Yankees and avoiding Shea Stadium before their numbers were hung above Citi Field’s upper deck last season. Gary Carter, one of the captains of the team during the most successful period in their history, was unceremoniously released after the 1989 season. He died of brain cancer 23 years later, as the team honored his memory with a graphic on the wall that had a front row seat to a 74-88 team. Even Shea Stadium’s farewell was held in the depressing aftermath of playoff elimination on the final day of the 2008 season, with the remaining fans undecided on whether to cry at the loss of their run-down old friend or at Ryan Church’s fly ball that they just couldn’t will another five feet further. For one day, though, time and place finally found coherence. On July 19, 2025, for the first time in Mets history, the fans got everything they could ever want, and David Wright did too.” -Richard Staff [Baseball Prospectus]

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