Alex Rodriguez
CITI COUNSEL: While Yankees counterpart Alex Rodriguez is surrounded by scandal, David Wright has embraced his Mets captaincy and excelled in the role. (
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WRIGHT WAY: David Wright, watching a popup in the mitt during the Mets’ 13-inning win last night, has all the qualities of a captain — and an All-Star starter. (Paul J. Bereswill)
David Wright doesn’t know Anthony Bosch. No one has ever linked Wright to Biogenesis. Sandy Alderson has never felt compelled to order Wright to “shut the f—-k up.” Neither did Omar Minaya. He is the manager’s dream for Terry Collins that Derek Jeter has been for Joe Torre and Joe Girardi.
David Wright is the anti-Alex Rodriguez.
It is a big reason why you root for justice when the fan votes for the National League All-Star third baseman are tabulated later this week: David Wright starting there July 16 at Citi Field for the Mets, 13-inning, 5-4, comeback winners over the Diamondbacks last night thanks to Andrew Brown’s walkoff, 0-2 single off Josh Collmenter with the bases loaded following a Matt Harvey pinch-hit sacrifice bunt in the five-hour, 13-minute marathon.
At a time when Major League Baseball is investigating whether A-Rod lied about not being a liar and a cheat, Wright embodies the virtues all commissioners crave for their sports. At a time when reporters scurry to Charleston, S.C., following a communiqué from the Yankees that their third baseman was beginning his rehab assignment tonight, Captain Right effortlessly spoils a Biogenesis curveball.
“I have to be honest with you, I don’t know about it to be commenting intelligently on it,” Wright said. “I see it on the front page, and I’ll just turn and read about something else. I mean, it’s something that I haven’t followed very closely. Maybe I should be. Obviously, you never want to have baseball, a game that I love dearly, to have a black eye. So I try to go along with the philosophy ‘innocent till proven guilty,’ so we’ll see what happens.”
I asked Wright if he ever had a talk with his father about performance-enhancing drugs.
“No. I think it was understood at a very young age that drugs in general, no matter if it’s a street drug, whatever type of drug, that’s unacceptable,” Wright said. “It’s something that I take pride in never getting caught up in, and obviously growing up in a pretty conservative household, father’s a police officer, mother works in a school system, at a very young age I was taught if you work hard enough at something that that’s the way to attain those goals. Never try to take that easy way out. The whole do well in school and stay away from drugs [attitude] was kind of instilled in my mind at a very young age, so I’m glad I had that type of foundation growing up for sure.
“There’s sometimes where I probably kick and scream and curse under my breath at my parents for being as strict as they were and instilling a lot of discipline in me. But as I’ve grown older, I can’t thank them enough for doing that because it’s helped me make a lot of wise decisions in my older ages.”
He is not talking about A-Rod when he says: “I’m obviously against players trying to gain an unfair edge, and this isn’t about one specific player, one specific group of players. I’ve said it all along that I feel like if you try to cheat, I hope you get caught and I hope you get punished. Every conference call, every meeting, every opportunity that I’ve had to voice my opinion about making the drug testing as strong and as strict as possible, I’ve been in favor of that, and that hasn’t changed.”
Wright has embraced his Captainship, Collins said.
“Matter of fact, more than I thought, ’cause he’s not a very verbal guy, he’s all actions,” Collins said. “Once in a while he’ll go over and say something to a young player. He’s such a personable guy, he’s always doing stuff for a rookie that people don’t even know about. Right now, he knows he’s got the voice here and it’s his voice that speaks the loudest, so I think he’s done a tremendous job.”
Wright said: “I think that when it’s all said and done, no matter what I’m able to accomplish or not accomplish on the baseball field, I’ll consider this one of the greatest honors that I could ever have as far as being a baseball player. I’ve always wanted to be a good player, and just as important to me, I’ve always wanted to be considered a good person, a good leader, a good teammate, and I think that’s why it means so much to me.”
The numbers scream that Wright — 2-for-5 with an RBI single and two walks last night — shouldn’t need CougarLife.com to hold off the Giants’ Pablo Sandoval, last year’s upset winner of the fan vote, this time.
“You see all the things that are going on with the athletes doing this, or the athletes doing that,” Collins said. “You never read anything about this guy, except the good stuff.”
Anti-A-Rod.