David Wright was the face of the New York Mets for 15 seasons and was universally liked by teammates and opponents alike. His story, including his emotional final game in 2018, is captured in this excellent memoir.
Title/Author:
“The Captain: A Memoir” by David Wright and Anthony DiComo
Tags:
Baseball, professional, memoir, Mets
Publish date:
October 13, 2020
Length:
368 pages
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
David Wright is one of those baseball “what if” stories. What if he was able to stay healthy and not have battled injuries the last few seasons of his career? What if his team, the New York Mets, had been able to win at least one championship instead of losing some of those chances in heartbreaking fashion? Those are questions for others to answer as Wright has no regrets and lives up to his reputation as one of the best ambassadors to the game in his memoir, co-written with Anthony DiComo.
Wright doesn’t spend much time talking about his childhood when he grew up in the Norfolk/Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia. He played alongside another future MLB player, Michael Cuddyer, whom he mentions frequently in this part of his story and later becomes his teammate when the Mets reach the World Series in 2015. At the time, the local minor league team, the Norfolk Tides, were the AAA farm team for the Mets and Wright had dreams of playing for them. So when the call came that he was drafted by them, you can imagine the joy he and his family were sharing, even if that meant he had to back out on his agreement to play baseball for Georgia Tech.
Even though he had a fairly quick route to the major leagues, he talks about his insecurities and questioning of his ability to reach the majors. Knowing what we know now about his success (when healthy) during his time with the Mets, that seems awfully strange, but it was a constant for him throughout his minor league time. That is one explanation behind his work ethic, which is another topic he writes about often,
Wright had the image of a clean cut, very friendly baseball player who would rarely criticize anyone and lead more by example than by yelling. That image is certainly verified in this book, where he is very reluctant to criticize anyone, tell stories that would shed a negative light on anyone, or even say anything bad about some who are not favorably received. A very good example of this is his praise and thanks to the former owners of the Mets, the Wilpon family. While most Mets fans do not look upon the former owners too kindly, Wright is very thankful to them for giving him the chance to succeed. Another is his defense of Carlos Beltran for taking the third strike to end game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series and thereby costing the Mets a chance to go to the World Series.
The best baseball stories for Wright come from the more successful
seasons that the Mets had during his time, such as the aforementioned 2006
season and the 2015 season as well, even though by this time, he had already
begun missing significant playing time due to various injuries. His home run in game 3 of the 2105 World
Series is the moment that he considers to be his best as he states it was one
of the few times he didn’t think about the game at hand and just let himself
enjoy the moment. It probably helped
that this was the one game the Mets won during that series.
After Wright was diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2016 which eventually led to
his decision to retire, it is clear to the reader that he is less engaged in
baseball and more about his family as he got married and had two daughters in
that time. When he finally made the
decision to retire and asked if he could play one last time on the penultimate
day of the 2018 season, the reader will feel the joy and relief that Wright did
when he knew that this was the end, but was very appreciative of the love that
he received from the sold-out crowd at Citi Field.
A memoir that truly reflects the person who wrote it, “The Captain” is a book that Mets fans will want to add to their collection and one that baseball fans who just want to learn more about the captain of Mets will also want to read.
Book Format Read:
E-book (Kindle)
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