(Photo: Bill Menzel)
The first Yankee Stadium was known as “The House That Ruth Built” because the Yankees star Babe Ruth hit a home run during the first World Series game played there in 1923.
The current Yankee Stadium is known in some circles as “The House that Jeter Built” because Derek Jeter – the Yankees biggest star – was instrumental in the World Series win in 2009.
So if that’s the case then Citi Field must be “The House That Wright Built”, since David Wright has been its resident star since it was built and also tonight he christened the stadium in its first World Series Game with a homer in the first inning.
“I was trying to tell myself just kind of nice and easy, because he supplies the power. You throw upper 90s, you’ve just got to try to meet it,” Wright said. “I was trying to get my foot down early, get the barrel to the ball, and as you can see, put a good swing on it.”
On a team with four budding superstars in the starting rotation, Wright remains the team’s resident hero. Since he came up back in 2004, you can tell this guy was going to be special for the Mets. He has the looks, the attitude and skills to be the Mets version of Jeter. For the past decade, he has been the face of the franchise and an ambassador for Major League Baseball.
More than Noah Syndergaard’s Thor and Matt Harvey’s The Dark Knight, Wright is Captain America. He is clean cut, well-spoken and a symbol for baseball. If you want your kid to grow up and play the game correctly, just point him to David Wright.
And now, more importantly, he is leading the Mets in the World Series. Even as he struggled early on in the playoffs, Wright continued to carry on. Because of his back condition, No. 5 arrives at the ballpark extra early to get ready to play the game. Today he arrived at Citi Field at 11:45 in the morning.
“It’s just been part of the routine to have to go through the things that I have do to get my back ready on a daily basis. It takes extra time, but nobody is complaining,” Wright said. “It’s the World Series. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
“So a lot of it, too, I like to take my time doing it. I don’t like to rush through anything. So I get here early, kind of relax a little bit, go through my routine, get the work done both by myself and the therapist. Get ready to go. Plus I wanted to watch some film, watch some at-bats that I’ve had where I felt better, to see if I can pick up anything mechanically and work on that.”
It’s that type of example that makes the Mets look to their Captain. Wright isn’t a rah-rah type of guy, but he is a leader by example, so it makes sense that the rest of the team are emulating his work ethic.
And it paid off with four RBI tonight.
“Certainly David has been struggling, he never makes an excuse. He’s got to swing better; he knows that. Big hit for him, big hit for us,” manager Terry Collins said. “Got him going. A big hit later in the game off Herrera. I said before the game, we get our offense going a little bit, we play better baseball, like everybody does. I’ve had a lot of questions about, why are you playing this guy right, playing that guy. I’ve only got 13 guys and eight of them got to play. So you kind of stick with them and we got some big hits tonight from some of the guys that haven’t been swinging very well.”
This is still just one game and if the Mets are going to win three of the next four games, they will need their Captain leading the way.
Tonight was just the start, but at least right now, you can call Citi Field: The House That Wright Built.
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