On December 12, 2000, David Wright was eight days from turning 18, and, though no one would know it for seven months, he had just become a member of the team he grew up rooting for.
The Mets, then married to an archaic belief in spending moderately large sums of money to field competitive teams, had just lost a bidding war for the services of team ace Mike Hampton. The organization had acquired Hampton the year before in a trade, knowing it was going to be costly to retain his services beyond 2000. This proved accurate: Hampton infamously picked the Colorado Rockies over the Mets, citing the impressive schools in the Denver area as his primary motivation.