CHICAGO — David Wright was stopped in the clubhouse by Jeff Wilpon, holding a huge magnum of champagne. Wright tried to get by and Wilpon stopped him and poured a swig of bubbly.
“That’s the best tasting champagne I’ve ever had,” Wright said after reaching the World Series for the first time in his career after the Mets beat the Cubs, 8-3 in Game 4 of the NLCS at Wrigley Field.
Wright got close once before, in 2006, only to fall just short in the NLCS to the Cardinals.
“Everything we’ve been through makes this even more rewarding,” Wright said. “I knew we had a good team in spring training, but you never know how things are going to end up.”
Especially when the team hovers around .500 and Wright missed more than three months with a back injury and had to spend time rehabbing in Florida.
David Wright will be given third base used at Wrigley Field tonight. Class move by @Cubs for @mets captain. pic.twitter.com/wHmE4AWs4B
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) October 22, 2015
“It’s been a long road for me personally,” Wright said. “Every day in rehab, I dreamt about this moment. Not just this moment and getting here, but winning it. We’re in the World Series. I can’t believe I’m saying it. I can’t believe it’s here.”
Wright has been in New York long enough and has watched the team across town to understand just getting to the Fall Classic won’t be enough to etch this year’s team into history.
“I hope this will go up there with the ’69 Mets and the ’86 Mets,” Wright said. “We’re already with the 2000 Mets, so it’s pretty special.”
Four more wins will give Wright and the Mets exactly what they want.
Molly Beers Wright takes the field to join the celebration.Anthony J. Causi“Then you’re talking about cementing a place in Mets history and I couldn’t be more proud of that,” Wright said. “This isn’t a team, it’s a family.”
And one that didn’t appear ready for the postseason until general manager Sandy Alderson remade it before the trade deadline.
“People wanted to doubt us,” Wright said. “They called us an underdog. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true. To kind of come out of nowhere, with all the injuries and all the issues, we don’t have enough time to go through all of it.”
Instead, he left it at this.
“From now on, when people talk about the 2015 Mets, they’ll be talking about one of the greatest Mets teams in history,” Wright said. “That has a nice ring to it.”
Now, all he needs is a World Series ring.
