At 5 p.m. Monday, a little over a half hour after the Mets beat the Marlins and a few minutes after Jerry Manuel and Johan Santana addressed members of the press in Citi Field’s media room, 23 members of the media huddled around David Wright’s locker in the Mets’ clubhouse.
Wright was not there. Veteran columnists stood closest to his locker, looking entitled. They had been there the longest, like fans camped out for tickets to a rock show.
As the group grew, it grew restless.
“I’m closer to you than I ever get to my husband,” quipped one female reporter to the stranger she was pressed up against.
By 5:10 p.m, the crowd had at least doubled. Reporters jockeyed for position, subtly boxing one another out for prime placement in the scrum. A cameraman pulled over a step-stool for a clean shot of a guy who wasn’t even there yet.
And they waited.
“What is this, Paul O’Neill?” someone asked. No one has ever accused the New York media of patience.
Soon, Wright emerged from somewhere in Citi Field’s bowels. He walked the length of the clubhouse, negotiated his way through the crush of reporters, stood facing his locker for just a moment, and turned around.
Wherever Wright had been while the crowd waited, he wasn’t showering. His face was still marked with smudged eye black and he was still wearing his sweat-soaked undershirt. Maybe he was eating, or, who knows, lifting weights or watching film or whatever it is David Wright does when he’s not playing baseball.
Maybe he was preparing. Maybe he was conjuring up the words he’d use to downplay the home run he’d hit in his first at-bat of the year, at the park everyone said was in his head, after the toughest season of his big-league career. Maybe he was riding out the excitement from that moment, waiting until he could put on a brave face and go out and tell all the reporters it wasn’t too big a deal and pretend like he didn’t feel super f@#$ing awesome about it.
Because that’s just what he did. Soon after the cameras’ lights went on and he turned around to face them, Wright began repeatedly reminding everyone that Josh Johnson is good and hitting home runs is fun but the most important thing is that the Mets won the game, and that it’s only one game and they’ve got a long way to go.
It continued like that, some bizarre tango, reporters coming up with new and creative ways to ask Wright if there was anything special about the home run or the win, and Wright coming up with polite and respectful ways to tell them there wasn’t.
And maybe he believes that. Maybe Wright’s is not a guarded performance aimed at protecting himself from media spin, but a reasonable attempt to drop perspective on a horde that appeared to want none of it.
Wright’s right, after all. It was one home run, and it was one win, and Opening Day means no more in the standings than any of the other 161 games the Mets will play this season. It’s not farfetched to assume David Wright understands a thing or two about baseball.
Or maybe he was hiding something, not giving in, carefully avoiding anything that might make him seem boastful or unfocused or, heaven forbid, emotional.
In time, one by one, the cameras turned down and the journalists ducked away as they got what they needed, if maybe not quite all they hoped for, from the Mets’ young star.
All part of a day’s work, for everyone involved. They’ll dance again on Wednesday.
Tedquarters 
David is very humble and i’m sure he was working on something or eating while the reporters were waiting for him. One thing you can always count on with the Mets is David Wright spending time with reporters, he’s nothing if not accountable, good or bad game.
I believe in Madden’s article today he said Wright was in the weight room after the game.
The thing I worry about is his defense. That ball he threw A) should have been better and B) any 1st baseman worth his salt would have got or kept from going into the backstop.
At some point when we get over the offense returning he needs to realize his gold glove defense is the things that in the end could hurt the team worse than a lack of power. Other people can pick the slack up for that, but other members can’t field his position.
Jacobs was terrible at the plate but I do think he’s a pretty good receiver at 1st. He scoops the ball well and stretches and I’m fairly confident that he would have caught that ball DW threw. So how Tatis was a D replacement I don’t get. Tatis’ defense is suspect and one thing I thing the team lacks is defensive replacements. This is why I wanted them to sign Mora.
Anyway I think as soon as Davis is ready they got to get him up there. We need a 1st baseman that can play the position as well as bat.
Dave,
You really think Wright not improving his defense would hurt the team worse than Wright having no power this year? Is that the consensus? I know defense has become more important, but come on . . .
Defense loses games much more often and faster than power wins them.
I’m not saying his batting isn’t important per se but no one has written or talked about the defensive drop off or having bad 1st basemen have hurt us the last year or two. Turning an out into doubles is very very bad.
Wright’s defense is typically better in the second half than the first half, he’ll be fine.
Just want to say this is a great article. It’s refreshing to see a purely realistic view of how it all goes down. I’m so used to the media jumping to extremes at every opportunity.
Thanks, Nick. Appreciate it.
Completely agree with Nick. I like having your blog plugged into Google Reader. Honest, passionate, provocative, but not laced in the bitterness that far too often leads the vocal point of view of many sports bloggers today.
Great stuff and a really unique perspective on the insanity of the post game media game.
Thanks, Patrick — tell your friends. But I reserve the right to lace my writing in bitterness when it becomes unavoidable.
Nice one, Ted. It has to be a pain in the blank to have all those reporters around you but at the same time, it’s Opening Day and jokers like us are running around in neon colors, giddy with excitement. He could lighten up a bit…
Here’s a make-shift vid from Opening Day:
Yup, good one Ted. Great read.
Great perspective by David AND by you, Ted.
Ted, great perspective, just out of curiosity, why do you think that David Wright is interviewed at his locker as opposed to the media room? If he is goling to be interviewed after every game, should he not have his slot in the media room? This way his locker is not overcrowded, to a point that should be a sanctuary of sorts.
Thanks, Wendy, and that’s a good question. It seems like the custom — for the Mets, at least — is to just have the manager and starting pitcher speak in the media room after every game, unless some player did something particularly notable. Since Wright faces questions at his locker after every game, it does stand to reason that they might bring him out as well. But maybe his postgame routine prevents it in a way a starting pitcher’s wouldn’t.
Ted,
That’s exactly my point, if its going to be a routine thing, then it should be scheduled, this way no one is waiting and what needs to be done is done.
If Wright is on the trainers table, in weight room or getting a post game snack, the media needs to be mindful and not get angry at him not being at his locker.
I just wrote an article on this issue on Bleacher Report, and i posted the link to this article.
Wait…did you mean Melvin Mora? If so, that’s the reason why he was traded in the first place.