Captain America's Been Here a While, Just No One's Noticed

David Wright a.k.a "Captain America" has been right in the middle of the magic for Team USA so far. (Credits: David Kadluboswki/AP Photo/The Arizona Republic)

Everyone recognizes David Wright for his skills, talents and demeanor. He's the consummate teammate, a quality all-around hitter and a solid fielder. The seven-year/$122 million dollar contract the Mets gave Wright seemed quite appropriate for their franchise player who's averaged .301/26/105 during his nine-year career. But just because people recognize Wright for his ability doesn't mean they've ever really understood how good he was.

The 30-year-old lifelong Met has only been to the playoffs once, back in 2006. Unfortunately for him that one run should have ended in a World Series trophy, but injuries to the sizzling hot Orlando Hernandez and always reliable Pedro Martinez left the Mets short-handed by the time they had pushed the Cardinals to Game 7 of the NLCS. Since then Wright has been through nothing but failures. Bullpen failures. Starpower failures. Management failure. Sometimes his own failure. The Virginia Beach product finished in the top-seven of MVP voting in both '07 and '08, but even his respective .352 and .340 batting averages in September wasn't enough to overcome such atrocious shortcomings from his teammates. Add those infamous September collapses with the lowly 300-348 record the Mets have compiled over their past four seasons and you can see that Wright couldn't take center stage, even though he was, by the numbers and eye test, a center-stage player.

Yet now Wright is on arguably baseball's biggest, albeit maybe not its most important, stage and he has quickly earned the name "Captain America" because of his timely and monstrous hitting. Captain America has twice turned close games into blowouts in this tournament with huge hits. Overall he is batting .438 over only 16 at-bats with 10 RBIs including a grand slam which turned a 2-1 USA deficit into an eventual 6-2 USA victory over Italy earlier in the tournament. Then last night with the Americans up 4-1 in the eighth, trying desperately to avoid having to overuse anyone in a tight bullpen situation, Wright deposited a 2-2 pitch right over the outstretched arm of former teammate Angel Pagan on the warning track in center field, scoring all three baserunners. In almost stunned belief, the play-by-play guy Matt Vasgersian says, "And Captain America has cashed in with the bases loaded, AGAIN!!!!" Of course, Wright had driven in two runs before that, one on a pretty opposite field hit with the bases juiced.

With the World Baseball Classic still somewhat of a joke to Americans, David Wright's sensational appearance on the grand stage is both good for him and good for the tournament. But most importantly the Captain America moniker harkens back to the days when Derek Jeter dominated the game under the simple alias of "Captain," with said domination actually taking place over the entirety of Jeter's career. Don't get me wrong, Wright has a long, long ways to go to be anything south of Jeter who should steal Jason Kidd's nickname as "First Ballot." However, it makes sense to compare Wright and Jeter in some senses since they both like to go opposite field and both are true gentlemen-like ambassadors to the game in arguably the best sports town on earth. And you know if the WBC had started 10 years ago, that Jeter would have stamped his name all over this tournament just like David Wright has. Bonafide leaders lead no matter what uniform they wear, but when they put on the USA jersey? It enters a whole new stratosphere.

Now Team USA could go out and get crushed by the heavily favored Dominicans on Thursday and suffer a tournament crushing defeat the next day, but David Wright has already imprinted his name in our heads. Captain America is no longer disrespected, forgotten or pushed to the way side. His impact on this tournament for the United States has already long been felt, though I don't think we've seen the last of the Virginia Beach native's magically opposite field stroke.

Surround the man with the Triple-A Mets and he'll give you .300/30/100. Surround the man with the United States lineup and who knows what he'll give you, but for now it's still .438/1/10 in only 16 at-bats. So let's stop forgetting about David Wright because he plays for a pathetic franchise, let's start celebrating his shining light of greatness even if it's amid the darkness of the National League basement.

Oh and when Captain America was asked about his nicknamed? His reply "The important thing is hearing those U-S-A chants." Now, that's Captain America.