NewsWill Citi Field have a nickname?
'House of David' leads list for Mets' new ballpark
By Marty Noble / MLB.com
04/13/09 12:00 AM ET
NEW YORK -- A young, card-carrying David Wright devotee marched from behind the plate at Citi Field toward -- where else? -- the aisle closest to third base, wearing her passion, a No. 5 Mets uniform, and holding aloft her partisan message.Her makeshift sign had the words "citi FIELD" crossed out. And across the bottom of the cardboard was her printed preference for the name of the Mets' new ballpark.
"The House of DAVID."
Well, of course. What and who else could it be? If not Citi Field, then what? If the new place is going to go by a nickname, what more appropriate alternative is there? Beltran Ballpark? Please. Jose's House would be a reach. Moreover, The House of David works in several ways.
It has some double entendre to it. And Wright -- as modest as he is and as uncomfortable as he is with the notion -- is the only Mets player whose identity and image could carry it off. Citi Field could be his one day; in some ways, it already is.
Wright already is the face of the franchise, without question. His performance, charisma, looks, manner, sincerity and philanthropy already have distinguished him from his colleagues, but not in a way that others hold it against him.
"David's gonna own the new place when they get around to building it," Cliff Floyd said in 2006. "And no one in here [the clubhouse] will be jealous. ... Anyone doesn't like that kid, the problem is with them."
Moreover, Wright is perfectly believable. No one uses "too good to be true" in reference to the Mets' third baseman.
"What you see is what you get," Brian Schneider said in Spring Training. "Everyone enjoys him."
Wright broke in with the Mets in the summer of 2004 and immediately made a positive impression. Tom Glavine, who had come to admire Dale Murphy when they were Braves teammates, likened Wright to the former slugger. "He gets it," was Glavine's most-used characterization of Wright. The three words are the highest form of praise.
Wright makes no missteps. The camera doesn't catch him scratching. He doesn't take the high road; he lives on it. He does his work before the game, hustles during it and he's stand-up afterwards.
"He's not afraid to do the right thing," Floyd said, "even when it's not easy."
If the nickname is to evolve, that evolution will begin this evening when the Mets play the Padres in their first regular-season game at Citi Field. And for it all to work, Wright has to remain the player he has been. At age 25, he still is approaching his prime. And he already has four seasons of 100 RBIs, a 30-30 season, two Gold Gloves, three top-10 finishes in the MVP balloting and a .300 career average.
But he knows one ingredient is missing.
"We have to win. That's all we need to do," Wright said in Cincinnati last week. "Everything else is cool. But the most important thing is for us to win. And if we could do it the first year at Citi Field, that'd be great, because it would mean we'd win this year."
Wright steps back from "The House of David." It unsettles him.
"We haven't done anything there yet," he said, avoiding the vertical pronoun whenever possible.
And even if his achievements of the last 4 1/2 seasons had come exclusively as Citi, he would squirm at the mere mention.
"You'll never hear me use that," Wright said of the nickname that invokes him. "That's for someone else. And, really, it's Citi Field."
Marty Noble is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
