<
        >

          New York Mets

          Mets captain David Wright: 'People kind of giggled at us and laughed at us'

          play
          Wright on reaching World Series: 'Words can't describe' (1:09)

          David Wright reacts to the Mets' beating the Cubs to win the NLCS and advance to the World Series. (1:09)

          • Adam Rubin, ESPN Staff WriterOct 22, 2015, 06:19 AM
            Close
              Adam Rubin has covered the Mets since 2003. He's a graduate of Mepham High School on Long Island and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined ESPNNewYork after spending 10 years at the New York Daily News.
              Follow Adam on Twitter »  Chat archive »
            Follow on X

          CHICAGO -- Captain David Wright is the only player remaining who endured the full depths of the New York Mets' struggles since the franchise’s last postseason appearance in 2006.

          He lived through consecutive September collapses. Six straight losing seasons. Ownership's financial difficulty tied to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

          And, now, he can celebrate again. Finally.

          The Amazin’s completed a four-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs with an 8-3 win on Wednesday night at Wrigley Field. The victory sent the Mets to their fifth World Series.

          “It’s a long time coming,” a beaming Wright said. “We’ve been through some bad times. We’ve been through Septembers where you’re just playing out the schedule, and that’s no fun. To be able to completely reverse that -- 180 -- and now celebrate and get a chance to go to the World Series, I wish I could bottle it up. I really do. That’s an emotion that I’ll never forget.”

          He added: “This is one of the best days ever for me.”

          Wright had a chance to bail on the Mets, but instead signed an eight-year, $138 million extension back in 2012.

          General manager Sandy Alderson had convinced Wright to commit to the organization by selling him on the young pitching that was in the pipeline and on the verge of blossoming.

          Now, the Mets boast a rotation that outshined Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke in the National League Division Series and Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta in the National League Championship Series. And there’s more talent on the way to join Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz. Zack Wheeler is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and should be back in the majors in June or July 2016.

          “You win with starting pitching,” Wright said. “And, in my mind, we have the best and the deepest starting staff in baseball.”

          Wright said signing the extension with the Mets rather than bailing was “a combination of belief and faith.”

          “I had faith in what Sandy was going to do," Wright said. "I had faith in what this organization was going to do. I had faith in these starting pitchers that were being hyped so much. And I truly believed that this organization was going to turn it around, and that I wanted to be a part of that. There’s no describing what it feels like to win in New York. I’ve had a small sample of that. A larger sample now. To be able to do this here means the world to me. It wouldn’t even come close doing it somewhere else. So, to me, it was a no-brainer.”

          In reality, had the heavily favored Washington Nationals not slogged through the first half of the season, Alderson likely would not have been as bold in working in-season trades. The GM ultimately acquired Yoenis Cespedes, Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe, Tyler Clippard and Addison Reed.

          Still, Wright and manager Terry Collins were heaping the praise on the players who were with the club from spring training. That group did not allow the Mets to get dispirited and drift out of the race despite a moribund offense at points.

          “The guys that grinded it out for two or three months in the middle of the summer, when we had guys who were supposed to be role players, or maybe in the minor leagues, stepping up, keeping this team’s head above water for those two months to be able to make those moves, I think those guys deserve just as much credit as the guys that came over at the trade deadline,” Wright said.

          The captain added: “We knew we had a good team. I hate playing that underdog role. And I never will. I guess I kind of will right now. But people kind of giggled at us and laughed at us when we proclaimed we were going to be a playoff team. I’m pretty sure that we were underdogs going into that L.A. series. And I’m pretty sure that we were underdogs coming into the Chicago series. So to be able to go out there and win it with this group of guys and prove everybody else wrong -- I hate to use that cliché, but it feels really good -- because we knew we had a good team in spring training and backed it up.”

          The 2015 Mets become the fifth team in franchise history to reach the World Series, joining the 1969, 1973, 1986 and 2000 editions.

          “The ’69 Mets. The ’86 Mets. The 2000 Mets. We’re amongst the best Mets teams to ever take the field,” Wright said. “I can’t be more proud of that.”